How to create an alias for a command in Vim?

Question

Vim is my preferred text editor when I program, and thus I always run into a particularly annoying issue.

Frequently, when I quickly need to save the buffer and continue on to some other miscellaneous task, I do the typical

:w

However, I always — what seems to be like more than 50% of the time — manage to capitalize that :w. Naturally, Vim yells at me because W is an invalid command:

E492: Not an editor command: W

My question is how can one alias colon-commands in Vim. Particularly, could you exemplify how to alias W to w.

I am aware of the process to map keys to certain commands, but that is not what I’m looking for.

• Chris Morgan: possible duplicate of Can I (re-) map commands in vim?
• mMontu: To avoid :W you could a map a key to perform the saving. If you are used to some program that saves with Ctrl-s, there are these mappings from $VIM/mswin.vim: " Use CTRL-S for saving, also in Insert mode noremap <C-S> :update<CR> vnoremap <C-S> <C-C>:update<CR> inoremap <C-S> <C-O>:update<CR>
• Flimm: Similar question on Vi Stack exchange: vi.stackexchange.com/q/2665/7244

Answer 1

To leave completion untouched, try using

cnoreabbrev W w

It will replace W in command line with w, but only if it is neither followed nor preceded by word character, so :W<CR> will be replaced with :w<CR>, but :Write won’t. (Note that this affects any commands that match, including ones that you might not expect. For example, the command :saveas W Z will be replaced by :saveas w Z, so be careful with this.)

Update

Here is how I would write it now:

cnoreabbrev <expr> W ((getcmdtype() is# ':' && getcmdline() is# 'W')?('w'):('W'))

As a function:

fun! SetupCommandAlias(from, to)
 exec 'cnoreabbrev <expr> '.a:from
 \ .' ((getcmdtype() is# ":" && getcmdline() is# "'.a:from.'")'
 \ .'? ("'.a:to.'") : ("'.a:from.'"))'
endfun
call SetupCommandAlias("W","w")

This checks that the command type is : and the command is W, so it’s safer than just cnoreabbrev W w.

• Sean: This answer is the safest and most reliable for me.
• cprn: If you use the recommended solution, please, be aware both of the two below commands will work as the lower one which may present an unexpected result depending on the actual buffer content and VIM settings: :%s/W/foo/g<CR> :%s/w/foo/g<CR>
• airstrike: Actually, this would mean W will be replaced anywhere in the command bar, including, for example, in searches, so s/W foo/bar/g would be turned into s/w foo/bar/g. this can get annoying really fast. see my answer for a comprehensive solution.
• Chris Morgan: Absolutely; this is a horrible idea. You should never, ever, ever do this.
• kev: :cnoreabbrev <expr> W getcmdtype()==':'&&getcmdline()=~#'^W'?'w':'W'

Answer 2

With supplementary searching, I've found that someone asked nearly the same question as I.

:command <AliasName> <string of command to be aliased>

will do the trick.

Please be aware that, as Richo points out, the user command must begin with a capital letter.

• Pavel Strakhov: Using :command is good solution. :cnoreabbrev doesn't understand cmd1|cmd2, :command does.
• Alec Jacobson: A less confusing way to write this is, :command AliasName string of command to be aliased
• blueyed: This won't handle/forward any command arguments, like -nargs, -complete etc.
• Jacklynn: What about :Q! or :W!?
• isomorphismes: Just to be very literal: put :command W w in the .vimrc file.

Answer 3

I find that mapping the ; key to : would be a better solution, and would make you more productive for typing other commands.

nnoremap ; :
vnoremap ; :

• airstrike: This is the single best tip for vim. I'm so used to it now that every time I encounter the normal behavior, it takes me a few tried to get my mind retrained.
• Flimm: This is not an answer to the question.
• Dessa Simpson: @Flimm No, but it makes OP's issue go away.
• Luc: When using t or f, one can usually use ; to go to the next occurrence. One can safely map that the other way, even if you mapped semicolon to colon. There won't be an alias loop. nnoremap : ;
• Dessa Simpson: @EricDuminil If you go from : to ;, then you're no longer using shift when typing ;w and therefore won't accidentally type W instead of w.

Answer 4

The best solution involves writing a custom function for handling abbreviations that only take place in the beginning of the command bar.

For this, add the following your vimrc file or anywhere else.

" cabs - less stupidity {{{
fu! Single_quote(str)
 return "'" . substitute(copy(a:str), "'", "''", 'g') . "'"
endfu
fu! Cabbrev(key, value)
 exe printf('cabbrev <expr> %s (getcmdtype() == ":" && getcmdpos() <= %d) ? %s : %s',
 \ a:key, 1+len(a:key), Single_quote(a:value), Single_quote(a:key))
endfu
"}}}

" use this custom function for cabbrevations. This makes sure that they only
" apply in the beginning of a command. Else we might end up with stuff like
" :%s/\vfoo/\v/\vbar/
" if we happen to move backwards in the pattern.
" For example:
call Cabbrev('W', 'w')

A few useful abbreviations from the source material where I found this stuff:

call Cabbrev('/', '/\v')
call Cabbrev('?', '?\v')
call Cabbrev('s/', 's/\v')
call Cabbrev('%s/', '%s/\v')
call Cabbrev('s#', 's#\v')
call Cabbrev('%s#', '%s#\v')
call Cabbrev('s@', 's@\v')
call Cabbrev('%s@', '%s@\v')
call Cabbrev('s!', 's!\v')
call Cabbrev('%s!', '%s!\v')
call Cabbrev('s%', 's%\v')
call Cabbrev('%s%', '%s%\v')
call Cabbrev("'<,'>s/", "'<,'>s/\v")
call Cabbrev("'<,'>s#", "'<,'>s#\v")
call Cabbrev("'<,'>s@", "'<,'>s@\v")
call Cabbrev("'<,'>s!", "'<,'>s!\v")

• ZyX: There is a built-in function string() that does the same thing as yours Single_quote().
• Jacktose: But don't you have to type <c-]>, space, or some other non-keyword character after abbreviations? So I'd end up typing :s/<c-]> or :s/ <bs>, which hardly seems faster.

Answer 5

Suppose you want to add alias for tabnew command in gvim. you can simply type the following command in your .vimrc file (if not in home folder than create one)

cabbrev t tabnew

• Flimm: This will cause a command like :saveas t example to be replaced with :saveas tabnew example

Answer 6

Maybe you would like to map one of your function keys (F1..F12) to :w ? Then put this into your .vimrc:

noremap <f1> :w<return>
inoremap <f1> <c-o>:w<return>

(ctrl-o in insert mode switches temporarily to normal mode).

Answer 7

Safest and easiest is a plugin such as cmdalias.vim or my recent update vim-alias of it that take into account

• preceding blanks or modifiers such as :sil(ent)(!) or :redi(r),
• range modifiers such as '<,'> for the current visual selection,
• escape special characters such as quotes, and
• check if the chosen alias is a valid command line abbreviation.

Answer 8

I think @ZyX's answer is great, but if you're using a newer version of neovim (0.5+), you might want to define the function using lua instead. Here's one way you could do it:

function _G.abbreviate_or_noop(input, output)
 local cmdtype = vim.fn.getcmdtype()
 local cmdline = vim.fn.getcmdline()
 if (cmdtype == ":" and cmdline == input) then 
 return output
 else
 return input
 end
end
function SetupCommandAlias(input, output)
 vim.api.nvim_command("cabbrev <expr> " .. input .. " " .. "v:lua.abbreviate_or_noop('" .. input .. "', '" .. output .. "')")
end

Then, you'd drop the call from call SetupCommandAlias("pg", "postgres://") and just use the function like this: SetupCommandAlias("pg", "postgres://").

n.b. If using it from a .vim file instead of a .lua file, you'd need to prefix the function call with lua, i.e. lua SetupCommandAlias("pg", "postgres://").