How to set Vim command without executing

Question

I want to create a function such that when I execute it (:'<,'>call Foo()) with some text selected, it will set my command-line as ':%s/selected_text/selected_text/gc' so that I can edit the destination pattern manually before executing

I can write the function to execute the substitute command but

command-history will not have that execute command, only the call Foo() line
that would still be less than ideal as I would prefer if I could avoid executing at all

Is there a 'set command-line' command maybe?

I think you want a mapping, not a function. The mapping should yank the selected text and construct command inserting the yanked text two times. As you don't want to execute the constructed command yet don't append <CR> at the end of the constructed command-line. — phd
– phd, Commented Jun 18 at 19:03
@phd I really wanted a function. It looks like I need to write a remap that will call the function from which that part is extracted — Olivier Diotte
– Olivier Diotte, Commented Jul 16 at 18:18

romainl · Accepted Answer · 2025-06-19 07:52:29Z

1

As mentioned in the comments, a function doesn't seem to be strictly needed, here.

The lowest-level approach is commonly found in people's vimrc:

 xnoremap <key> y:%s/<C-r>"//gc<Left><Left><Left>

where we:

yank the visually selected text into the unnamed register with y,
insert a stub Ex command in the command-line, containing the content of the unnamed register,
move the cursor a few characters left, where we can type the replacement text.

which looks like this in action:

See :help c_ctrl-r and :help registers.

It works as-is but it is a bit crude. Possible improvements include:

do not pollute registers,
sanitize the search pattern before inserting it (escape slashes, etc.),

which would definitely require one or more functions to be written.

answered Jun 19 at 7:52

romainl

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Olivier Diotte Aug 25 at 19:19

What I want is to be able to select long things like say some_Garbage_cAsING and be able to edit it on the command line before executing a function that will run some further transformations

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