~ / macros / edit-a-macrolesson 6/6

Edit a macro as text

Paste a register into the buffer, fix it, and yank it back.

?how it works

A macro is just text in a register, so you can edit it like any other text. That's much faster than re-recording a long macro with one wrong key.

Paste it on a line of its own: O<Esc>"ap (or :put a). Special keys show up as control characters: the Escape key is ␛ here (^[ in Neovim).
Fix it with normal editing commands.
Yank it back without the line break: 0"ay$.
Delete the scratch line with dd and replay with @a.

The common mistake is yanking it back with "ayy or "add: the line break is stored too, and when the macro is replayed it acts as one more keystroke that moves the cursor down a line.

The same works the other way round: type keys as text on a line, yank them into a register, and run them as a macro.

⌨keys

`"{a-z}p`	put a register after the cursor
`:put {a-z}`	put a register on a new line below
`0"ay$`	yank the line into register a, without the line break
`"aY`	yank to the end of the line into register anvim

Nin neovim

In Neovim Y yanks to the end of the line (like y$), so 0"aY puts the line in register a without its line break, one key shorter than 0"ay$.

2 drills

Fix one wrong key: Register a was recorded with gu (lowercase) where it needed gU (uppercase). Paste it on a line of its own, fix that letter, yank it back into a, delete the scratch line and run the fixed macro on every line.
Turn text into a macro: The first line is a macro written out as text. Yank it into register q with "qY, delete that line, and run the macro on the remaining lines.

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