Delete a specific Column in VIM/gvim with out using Visual Block mode

Question

Sample Input File

+--------------------+---------+---------
|           Name     |   S1    |    S2
+--------------------+---------+---------
|           A        | -4.703  | -2.378  
|           B        | -3283.2 | -3204.5 
|           C        |  8779   |  7302   
|           D        |  22078  |  18018  
+--------------------+---------+---------

It is required to remove the S1 Column, i.e

Desired Output

+--------------------+---------
|           Name     |   S2    
+--------------------+---------
|           A        | -2.378    
|           B        | -3205.5  
|           C        |  7302      
|           D        |  18018    
+--------------------+---------

Can anyone help with this

thanks

Answer 1

Look, ma: no visual (block) mode !

My pragmatic approach wins would be: look for column anchors (-+-)

/-+-

Now, the column deletion is as simple as

d<C-v>N

(delete, block-wise, to the next occurrence of the column anchor from the end of the document).

Job done.

---

Fancy options

To account for multiple columns, you'd like to be precise about which column to match

This needs a little extra oomph

0f+
:exec '/\%' . col('.') . 'v\v[+|]'Enter
NC-vN
t+d

To see more about this \%22v way to select a virtual column, see

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