~ / registers / namedlesson 2/5

Named registers: "a to "z

Stash text under a letter so later deletes can't touch it; capitals append.

?how it works

Type " and a letter before a yank, delete or put to choose the register: "ayy yanks the line into register a, "ap puts it. There are 26 of them, a to z. Vim never fills them on its own, so they survive all the deleting you do in between.

Use the capital letter to append instead of replace: "Ayy adds the current line to whatever is already in a. That's how you gather lines from all over a file and put them down in one go.

To see what's stored, run :reg (or :reg a for just one register).

Macros record into these same registers (qa fills a), so pick different letters for text you've stashed and macros you've recorded.

⌨keys

`"{a-z}`	use register {a-z} for the next yank, delete or put
`"ayy`	yank the line into register a
`"ap`	put register a after the cursor
`"Ayy`	append the line to register a ("Add cuts and appends)
`:reg`	list what every register holds

Nin neovim

Neovim's system clipboard is the "+ register: "+y copies to it and "+p pastes from it. Neovim talks to the clipboard through a tool such as pbcopy on macOS. To make every yank and put use it, add set clipboard+=unnamedplus to your config.

2 drills

Put from named registers: Registers a and b already hold one line each (check with :reg). Put them so the file matches the target.
Append with "A, then put it twice: Register a holds the first lines of a banner (check with :reg a). Cut the line under the cursor and append it to a with "Add, then put the whole banner at the top and at the bottom of the file.

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