Setting to skip over punctuation when moving forwards and backwards words

Question

When I'm using vim I generally never want to move to a punctuation mark when I press w or b to go forwards or backwards. So I'm wondering if there's a setting or something to change this functionality?

e.g. If I've got some code like

object.method(args)

and my cursor is at the [o] in "object" then I want w to move to the [m] in "method", and another w to move to the [a] in "args". I don't want it to land on the [.] or the [(]. If I've ever wanted to move to a punctuation char I've always used f or F to jump straight to it. I've never personally wanted to move to a punctuation char when I move through words and I just realized this is really bugging me.

Answer 1

I too find that I would like a movement that is more inclusive that w, but not as inclusive as W. In particular, I would like a movement that only considers tokens beginning with alphanumeric characters as significant.

So I came up with the following:

" <SPACE>   : forward to next word beginning with alphanumeric char
" <S-SPACE> : backward to prev word beginning with alphanumeric char
" <C-SPACE> : same as above (as <S-SPACE> not available in console Vim
" <BS>      : back to prev word ending with alphanumeric char
function! <SID>GotoPattern(pattern, dir) range
    let g:_saved_search_reg = @/
    let l:flags = "We"
    if a:dir == "b"
        let l:flags .= "b"
    endif
    for i in range(v:count1)
        call search(a:pattern, l:flags)
    endfor
    let @/ = g:_saved_search_reg
endfunction
nnoremap <silent> <SPACE> :<C-U>call <SID>GotoPattern('\(^\\|\<\)[A-Za-z0-9_]', 'f')<CR>
vnoremap <silent> <SPACE> :<C-U>let g:_saved_search_reg=@/<CR>gv/\(^\\|\<\)[A-Za-z0-9_]<CR>:<C-U>let @/=g:_saved_search_reg<CR>gv
nnoremap <silent> <S-SPACE> :<C-U>call <SID>GotoPattern('\(^\\|\<\)[A-Za-z0-9_]', 'b')<CR>
vnoremap <silent> <S-SPACE> :<C-U>let g:_saved_search_reg=@/<CR>gv?\(^\\|\<\)[A-Za-z0-9_]<CR>:<C-U>let @/=g:_saved_search_reg<CR>gv
nnoremap <silent> <BS> :call <SID>GotoPattern('[A-Za-z0-9_]\(\>\\|$\)', 'b')<CR>
vnoremap <silent> <BS> :<C-U>let g:_saved_search_reg=@/<CR>gv?[A-Za-z0-9_]\(\>\\|$\)<CR>:<C-U>let @/=g:_saved_search_reg<CR>gv

" Redundant mapping of <C-SPACE> to <S-SPACE> so that
" above mappings are available in console Vim.
"noremap <C-@> <C-B>
if has("gui_running")
    map <silent> <C-Space> <S-SPACE>
else
    if has("unix")
        map <Nul> <S-SPACE>
    else
        map <C-@> <S-SPACE>
    endif
endif

I have had this for a long time now, and I find that I use <SPACE>/<C-SPACE> movements so much more than w and W; it just seems more useful when coding. You can, of course, map the commands to whatever keys you find useful or more appropriate.

Answer 2

Even running the risk of creating a script for something that's built-in (like I did last time), here is a little function that may help accomplishing this.

function! JumpToNextWord()
    normal w
    while strpart(getline('.'), col('.')-1, 1) !~ '\w'
        normal w
    endwhile
endfunction

Basically, what it does is executing the standard w and repeating it if the character under the cursor is not in a word character (feel free to change that pattern.

If you add that and a little map in your .vimrc:

nnoremap <silent> ,w :call JumpToNextWord()<CR>

It should work.