One of the big advantages I find to using vim as my editor is the ability to record and replay macros. The recording of a macro begins when q is pressed followed by any other key, which specifies what register the macro is to be stored in. If we use qq the macro will be stored in register q, whereas qt will store the macro in register t. Once the recording is started, all keystrokes are stored into the specified register. Pressing q again will stop the recording. To "playback" the macro, which will just execute the contents of the register as if you were pressing the keystrokes yourself, type @ followed by the register in which you stored the macro. @@ will playback the most recently played macro.

I find that a good baseline for when a macro might be useful is for repetitious editing or reformatting that cannot easily be accomplished using visual block mode. For example, given the following Ruby method, let's say I wanted to modify the additional method calls to use parenthesis.

def my_method
  run_something arg1, arg2
  run_something2 arg1
  run_something3 arg1, arg2, arg3
  # etc...
end

To do this we can start on the first line of the method (not the definition) and press qq to being recording our macro to register q. We can type ^wi(^[A)^[ followed by q to stop the recording, where ^[ is the escape character. Now we can execute @q on each line we want to modify to be wrapped in parenthesis to get the following result.

def my_method
  run_something (arg1, arg2)
  run_something2 (arg1)
  run_something3 (arg1, arg2, arg3)
  # etc...
end

Let's break down the macro as it looks like gibberish when pasting the contents of the register as I did above.

• ^ takes our cursor to the beginning of the line. This ensures that we always start from the same location and follows the principle of generalizing a macro as much as possible to optimize the potential for reuse.
• w jumps to the next word, which happens to be the beginning of our first argument
• i(^[ goes into insert mode and writes an open parenthesis then escapes back into normal mode
• A)^[ goes into insert mode at the end of the line and inserts a closing parenthesis before escaping back into normal mode

When we break the macro down, it is actually really simple. Another thing we could have done is typed j before we stopped recording which would have taken us to the next line of code automatically. Then we could have used a single command, 3@q, instead of 3 separate commands to do the same amount of work.

I already mentioned the notion of generalizing a macro to allow for its reuse. I think this is where macros can really shine. Every now and then you might create a macro that you would actually find useful in your everyday development. What do you do? You can simply create a mapping in your vimrc to run this macro such that it will always be available for use even if the original register you recorded it in is overwritten eventually. In your vimrc paste your macro in with "qp, where q is the register you used to record the macro. We are halfway there, simply add a mapping in front of this pasted content like, nnoremap <leader>(. The final result looking like:

nnoremap <leader>( ^wi(^[A)^[

Now our old macro turned mapping will run whenever we type <leader>( in normal mode.