🚀 go-pugleaf

brandy@tramp.Colorado.EDU (BRANDAUER CARL M) writes:

:wolff@inf.fu-berlin.de (Thomas Wolff) writes:
:
:....... it is not even capable of performing one of the most elementary 
:>text editing tasks: marking an arbitrary (!) block of text and by some 
:>means copying or moving it to another place.
:
:Nonsense!  Put the cursor on the first character of the arbitrary text
:block and do a yank using a regular expression target.  Everything up
:to but not including the regular expression can be duplicated anywhere
:you like, even in another file if named buffers are used.  All this works
:with delete as well if the intent is to move the block.

Yes, or, more generally, go to the first character you want, type ma,
go to the last chaacter you want, type mz, and now typing: "a`ay`z
will yank this arbitrary block into named-buffer a, or "a`ad`z will
delete the same block into named-buffer a; placing the cursor anywhere
and typing: "ap, or "aP, will place the named-buffer contents after,
resp. before, the cursor.  There are defects of course, for example
no visual feedback of the marking or the yanking, but I really don't
understand where Wolff's assertion about vi's presumed inability to
mark arbitrary textblocks can come.  Maybe a misunderstanding between
the 'a and `a movement-commands, where the former is line oriented
while the latter is text-stream oriented?
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