To letter, then delete until letter, and repeat

Question

From "practical vim", I gather than a good practice is to try to move, act, and then repeat.

Say I have this string:

foo_bar fooo_bar foo abar foo_bar

I would like to move forwards until I find an f, and then delete until I find a b, and repeat.

I would have thought that the following would work:

ff
dtb
;
.
;
.

ff would be the command to move, and then dtb the one to act.

However, when I press ;, it goes forwards until just before the next b, while I would like to repeat my "move" command, i.e. ff.

Is there a way to do this, such that the "act" command doesn't change the behaviour of the "move" one?

Answer 1

; repeats the latest fFtT which, in your case, is tb, not ff. There is no way to make ; repeat something else.

Here are alternative methods…

• With :help /:

  ff
  d/b<CR>    " delete until next b
  ;
  .
  ;
  .
  

  As mentioned by @mattb, the trick is to use a different motion than any of fFtT for the operation so that your ff is always the latest motion repeatable with ; or ,.

• With :help recording:

  qq         " start recording in register q
  ff
  dtb
  q          " stop recording
  @q         " play it back
  @q         " play it back
  

  The trick is to encapsulate the initial motion and the operation into a single macro that can be repeated over and over without involving ; at all.