How to delete (not cut) in Vim?

Question

How can I delete a line without putting it into my default buffer?

Example:

line that will be copied.

line that I want to be substitued with the previous one.

What I'm trying to do:

yy
dd
p

But Vim replaces the recent copied string with the deleted (cutted) one. I know that I can use buffers like, "1yy, dd then "1p, but I always forget to put the copied string in a buffer then I need to paste my contents first (line that will be copied) and then delete what I want (line that I want to be substituted with the previous one.)

How can I really delete a text in Vi(m) without copying it?

Another related question is how I can forward delete a word in insert mode? I want something similar to Ctrl+w.

possible duplicate of [In vim is there a way to delete without putting text in the register?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/54255/in-vim-is-there-a-way-to-delete-without-putting-text-in-the-register) — eckes, Aug 17 '12 at 12:37

cutemachine · Answer 1 · 2012-12-19T07:08:53.660

261

The black hole register "_ will do the trick, but there is a better solution:

When you enter the line back with the p command you are pasting the contents of the (volatile) default register "", which has been overwritten by dd. But you still can paste from the (non volatile) yank register "0, which won't be overwritten by the delete command dd.

So these are the commands you want to use as per your example:

yy
dd
"0p

edited Dec 19 '12 at 07:08

answered Dec 18 '12 at 15:52

cutemachine

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Great, this should be the accepted answer. It's much easier to manually specify a register whenever I want to paste than to keep specifying a register every time I delete anything. – JShorthouse Dec 16 '19 at 17:32
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`"0p` does not exactly roll off the fingertips but I think I can get accustomed to this! – jrz Feb 25 '22 at 16:26
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@Jonz I would visually remember it like this. https://imgur.com/sQ2k0NI – Prasanna Sep 06 '22 at 15:35

score 198 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 12 '20 at 10:21

198

Use the "black hole register", "_ to really delete something: "_d.
Use "_dP to paste something and keep it available for further pasting.

For the second question, you could use <C-o>dw. <C-o> is used to execute a normal command without leaving the insert mode.

You can setup your own mappings to save typing, of course. I have these:

nnoremap <leader>d "_d
xnoremap <leader>d "_d
xnoremap <leader>p "_dP

edited Feb 12 '20 at 10:21

M. Gruber

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answered Aug 16 '12 at 19:13

romainl

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thx, you answer my both questions. But I didn't understand how these noremap commands will help me. Am I losing the cut function, right ? – MaikoID Aug 16 '12 at 19:28
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No, `d` still "cuts" and `p` still "pastes", while `d` deletes for real and `p` throws away the selected text and pastes the content of the default register. `p` allows me to paste the same text multiple times without having to use named registers. – romainl Aug 16 '12 at 20:04
Don't you mean `nnoremap d "_dd` and `xnoremap d "_dd`? As it is now, it waits for the next sequence. – Amir Shabani Oct 07 '21 at 09:16
1

@AmirA.Shabani this is intended. The point of those `d` mappings is not to be alternatives to `dd` but to be alternatives to `d`, which waits for a motion. – romainl Oct 07 '21 at 09:32
Holy cow I can't believe I never new about ``. Rad! – twhitney May 02 '22 at 22:35
You can just add `noremap "_`. With this you keep unchanged your clipboard by pressing your leader key before deleting, yanking or changing – Victor Oct 02 '22 at 07:12

score 68 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 16 '12 at 19:23

68

That's one of the things I disliked about vim... I ended up mapping dd to the black hole register in my .vimrc and life has been good since:

nnoremap d "_d
vnoremap d "_d

answered Aug 16 '12 at 19:23

kprobst

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then how DO you cut? – VitalyB Mar 09 '16 at 13:23
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`v/V` with `x` is also cut. And cutting with `x` is also coherent with `Ctrl + x` in any OS. – WesternGun Nov 03 '16 at 11:43

score 41 · Answer 4 · answered May 24 '15 at 13:15

41

the following mappings will produce:

d => "delete"
leader d => "cut"

nnoremap x "_x
nnoremap d "_d
nnoremap D "_D
vnoremap d "_d

nnoremap <leader>d ""d
nnoremap <leader>D ""D
vnoremap <leader>d ""d

Also, it is a nice practice to have the "leader" key set to comma, e.g:

let mapleader = ","
let g:mapleader = ","

these 2 snippets will make ",d" be your new cut command.

If you would like to use these mappings togther with a shared system clipboard configuration, see further details at https://github.com/pazams/d-is-for-delete

answered May 24 '15 at 13:15

pazams

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I wish I could upvote this answer more than once -- I was using kprobst's answer but then to cut a line, I had to use `yydd` which was a bit unsustainable on my fingers `;-)`. – Tahir Hassan May 21 '18 at 13:14
3

intellij idea acting so weird after this. dd does nothing. ,d does nothing – s1n7ax Jan 26 '19 at 06:29
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I like the solution a lot. One thing that didn't work for me - is cutting lines with `,dd`. After adding `nnoremap dd ""dd` it started to work – Alexey Nov 28 '19 at 07:52
I'm also having some problems in Intellij with ideavim plugin. The second part, it's not working :( – Victor Oct 02 '22 at 07:15
Setting the leader key to "," overwrites its "find previous" functionality which is a core feature of movement. I don't recommend it. Mapping leader to space (" ") gives a much better UX. – Ryan Fisher Aug 24 '23 at 23:10

score 10 · Answer 5 · edited Aug 16 '12 at 19:24

10

You can use "_d to prevent things from overwriting your yanked text. You can store yanked or deleted text in whatever register you want with ", and _ is the 'black hole' register, where you send stuff that you don't care about.

For more information you can type :help "_ or :help deleting

edited Aug 16 '12 at 19:24

pb2q

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answered Aug 16 '12 at 19:13

Alex

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score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Apr 25 '21 at 02:11

1

I use noremap ' "_ in my .vimrc

This keep the behavior of dd, so I can use it to cut as before.

But when I really want to delete something, just use the prefix '. For example: 'dd,'dw

answered Apr 25 '21 at 02:11

qz3065863

11
1

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Nov 03 '17 at 14:41

0

yy
Vx
p

When in visual mode, x will delete the selection, so if you want to delete a whole line, first press V to select the line in visual mode and then press x to delete the selection.

answered Nov 03 '17 at 14:41

Atemu

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This copies the deleted line into the clipboard which is exactly what OP wants to avoid. – BeefSupreme Mar 19 '19 at 13:10
Thanks! Somehow this works perfectly on Emacs's Evil plugin – Pedro Penna Jun 18 '19 at 14:46

mowwwalker · Answer 8 · 2022-01-18T03:59:30.127

0

I ended up with

nnoremap p "0p
nnoremap P "0P
vnoremap p "0p
vnoremap P "0P
vnoremap x "0x
nnoremap x "0x

Always paste from the 0 register instead of the unnamed one. Use x in visual mode to delete into the 0 register.

edited Jan 18 '22 at 03:59

answered Jan 18 '22 at 00:33

mowwwalker

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score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Oct 15 '22 at 11:56

There is another solution. That consists in copying line to copy over line to delete, like this.

Put the cursor at the begin of line of line to copy and then enter ddVp

dd kill the line to be copied
V select the whole line to be replaced with
p paste the killed line over the visual selection

Now the killed line is in "1 register, and the copied line is in "2 register. Nothing is lost.

I use vim 9, I don't know for which older vim version that works. If that doesn't work, you can put these lines in your .vimrc:

" Make p in Visual mode replace the selected text with the "" register. vnoremap p <Esc>:let current_reg = @"<CR>gvdi<C-R>=current_reg<CR><Esc>

How to delete (not cut) in Vim?

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