How to create an alias for a command in Vim?

by

To leave completion untouched, try using

cnoreabbrev W w

It will replace W in command line with w, but only if it is neither followed nor preceded by word character, so :W<CR> will be replaced with :w<CR>, but :Write won’t. (Note that this affects any commands that match, including ones that you might not expect. For example, the command :saveas W Z will be replaced by :saveas w Z, so be careful with this.)

Update

Here is how I would write it now:

cnoreabbrev <expr> W ((getcmdtype() is# ':' && getcmdline() is# 'W')?('w'):('W'))

As a function:

fun! SetupCommandAlias(from, to)
  exec 'cnoreabbrev <expr> '.a:from
        \ .' ((getcmdtype() is# ":" && getcmdline() is# "'.a:from.'")'
        \ .'? ("'.a:to.'") : ("'.a:from.'"))'
endfun
call SetupCommandAlias("W","w")

This checks that the command type is : and the command is W, so it’s safer than just cnoreabbrev W w.

More Related Contents:

  1. What is the difference between the remap, noremap, nnoremap and vnoremap mapping commands in Vim?
  2. How to redirect ex command output into current buffer or file?
  3. Multiple commands on same line
  4. Using Vim’s tabs like buffers
  5. Vim and Ctags tips and tricks [closed]
  6. Why do Vim experts prefer buffers over tabs? [closed]
  7. How do I exit Vim?
  8. Vim 80 column layout concerns
  9. Why should I use an IDE? [closed]
  10. Turning off auto indent when pasting text into vim
  11. How do I run a terminal inside of Vim?
  12. Tab key == 4 spaces and auto-indent after curly braces in Vim
  13. Why ci” and ci(, ci{…. behave differently?
  14. Move entire line up and down in Vim
  15. A more useful statusline in vim? [closed]
  16. How can I automatically add some skeleton code when creating a new file with vim
  17. How to add line numbers to range of lines in Vim?
  18. Is there a “vim runtime log”?
  19. Vim auto-generate ctags
  20. How to prevent the cursor from moving back one character on leaving Insert mode in Vim?
  21. Using vim’s f command over multiple lines
  22. How to effectively work with multiple files in Vim
  23. Why is \r a newline for Vim?
  24. Can terminals detect or ?
  25. Auto-open NERDTree in “EVERY” tab
  26. Replace tabs with spaces in vim
  27. Case preserving substitute in Vim
  28. Setting Vim whitespace preferences by filetype
  29. Vim run autocmd on all filetypes EXCEPT
  30. Cut to the system clipboard from Vim on Ubuntu

Leave a Comment