Append or prepend selected text to a file in Vim

Question

In Vim, is there a way to move the selected text into <current_file>.bak, appending or prepending? If possible, the backup file should not be displayed.

I envision the workflow to be:

1. Select some text
2. Type :sbak
3. The selection is saved into <current_file>.bak

Answer 1

You can do it in three steps:

• type Shift-vj...j to select some lines
• type :'<,'>w! >>file.bak to save selected lines to file.bak(append)
• type gvd to delete original lines

You can write a user-defined command Sbak if you like:

com! -nargs=1 -range Sbak call MoveSelectedLinesToFile(<f-args>) fun! MoveSelectedLinesToFile(filename)     exec "'<,'>w! >>" . a:filename     norm gvd endfunc 

Answer 2

What about

1. v
2. some movement command/even search to select the text
3. :'<,'> w! >> /YOUR/SELECTIONFILE
4. :'<,'>d

Is that what you want? If so set up a map for it, like

map <F2> :'<,'> w! >> /YOUR/SELECTIONFILE<cr>:'<,'>d<cr> 

Note this appends to SELECTIONFILE, and not only the selection, but the whole lines. Also, read :h :w and :h ++opt (in which you can learn about the possible options for writing files (e.g.) you can append to a file with different encoding, which really messes things, so don't do that ;-)