How to execute multiple global commands in Vim sequentially? (Error: "Cannot do :global recursive")

Question

I want to sort the paragraphs in my text according to their initials with the following global command:

g/_p/,/^$/mo$

This works alone. But when I use several global commands at once, then an error occurs:

g/_p/,/^$/mo$|g/_w/,/^$/mo$

This gives the following error:

Cannot do :global recursive

How can I run these commands sequentially at once?

(Here are a few lines of vimscript that sort all paragraphs. But they recognize the paragraphs by indentation, not empty lines. But surely one could adapt it to distinguish paragraphs by empty lines.) — Aaron Thoma
– Aaron Thoma, Commented Dec 18, 2019 at 5:21

toraritte · Accepted Answer · 2019-12-17 19:45:16Z

14

:exe 'g/_p/,/^$/mo$' | g/_w/,/^$/mo$

To append more global commands, just keep wrapping them in execute:

:execute 'g/aaa/s//bbb/g ' | execute 'g/ccc/s/ddd//g' | execute 'g/eee/s/fff/ggg/g' | g/^cake/s/$/ is a lie/g

The reason for the error is in :help:bar:

*:bar* *:\bar* | can be used to separate commands, so you can give multiple commands in one line. If you want to use | in an argument, precede it with \.

These commands see the | as their argument, and can therefore not be followed by another Vim command:

(.. list of commands ..)

:global

(.. list of commands ..)

Note that this is confusing (inherited from Vi): With :g the | is included in the command, with :s it is not.

To be able to use another command anyway, use the :execute command.

This also answers why the below chain would work without any issues:

%s/htm/html/c | %s/JPEG/jpg/c | %s/GIF/gif/c

edited Dec 17, 2019 at 19:45

toraritte

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answered Mar 17, 2012 at 15:28

Aaron Thoma

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2 Comments

I.B. Over a year ago

In this case it is not necessary to wrap both :global commands in :execute, it is enough to wrap only the first one: :exe'g/_p/,/^$/mo$'|g/_w/,/^$/mo$.

Aaron Thoma Over a year ago

@ib.: I incorporated your suggestion. Nice one, thanks! I especially like the fact, that you even saved the space between :exe and its parameter '…. xD

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