How to escape in g command's norm mode of Vim

Question

I want to add []( to the beginning of a line and ) to the end of a line that starts with http in Vim.

To do this I am using the following g command:

g/^htt/norm I[](

Now, I want to press Esc key now inside g and put A). How can I do that?

Answer 1

You can escape the Esc key by using ctrl+vfollowed by esc.

ctrl+v will insert the next non-digit literally.

Note: You may have to use ctrl+q depending on your system. (Nice mnemonic is quote)

See help for more information

:h c_Ctrl-V

Answer 2

To be able to use two :normal commands in sequence, you have to wrap them in :execute. When you use double quotes, you can then write the Escape as \<Esc>, like this:

:g/^htt/exe "norm I[](\<Esc>" | norm A)

Notes:

• Unless you need mappings to apply, using :normal! (with the bang) is preferred, because it's more robust.
• You could have also used :substitute here.

Answer 3

This is easier to do with :s:

:%s/^htt.*/[](&)/