How can I save a text block in visual mode to a file in Vim?

file vim save selection
Léo Léopold Hertz 준영 picture Léo Léopold Hertz 준영 · Apr 28, 2009 · Viewed 23k times · Source

The title is very descriptive. Just in case, I will give an example:

START BLOCK1
something
END BLOCK1

START BLOCK2
something
somenthing...
END BLOCK2
  1. I select the BLOCK1 in visual mode
  2. I yank it by pressing y
  3. How can I save the yanked BLOCK1 to some other file?

Answer

Rook picture Rook · Apr 28, 2009

Select the text you wish to save, in either line visual or block visual mode, and

:w new.txt

That's what you type, but you won't actually see exactly what's above. When you press :, you'll go to the command line which will automatically get filled in with selection information. It'll look something like this:

:'<,'>

Just carry on typing the rest (w new.txt) to get

:'<,'>w new.txt

...and press enter.

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