VIM multi-line inserts making me crazy

[dsr at tao.merseine.nu]

On Wed, Jun 15, 2005 at 11:01:47AM -0400, Steve Seremeth wrote:
> I can do search and replace in the block like so:
> <C-V>
> Use arrows (or "j") to pick your lines
> :s/^/#/  (which turns into: ":'<,'>s/^/#/")
> <enter>
> 
> But then vim matches the beginning of every line in the file as noted by 
> the blinding yellow highlighted line I get up the side of my terminal.  
> If I wanted to indent using tabs, I would highlight the block and then 
> use ">" -- and I know I can define tab/space settings in my .vimrc, 
> etc..  Is that my best option?  That doesn't cover me when I want to 
> insert comment chars.
> 
> Am I overlooking something (as I'm guessing I am)?

If I understand you, you want to be able to add a comment
character at the beginning of each line. The easiest way
to do that, IMHO, is:

position your cursor at the starting line
count how many lines you want to do this to - call it N
:.,+Ns/^/#/

Or if you have line numbering turned on, you can just say
:12,42s/^/#/
to do lines 12 through 42

Is that what you wanted?

-dsr-