Vim - Delete column
One of the great advantages of Vim over other editors is that it has various visual modes that allow editing text blocks involving multiple lines.
Today I needed to delete the characters from column 5 to column 10 of a file that were between lines 20 and 30.
An alternative would be to use regular expressions, but in Vim, this can be done in a much less complex way.
Vim has several visual modes:
v:--VISUAL--V:--VISUAL LINE--<C-v>:--VISUAL BLOCK--
The latter was the solution to my problem.
- Just go to line 20 column 5 (start of the block)
- Type
ctrl+v - Type 10 (number of lines in the block)
- Using the
lkey or the arrow keys, select up to column 10 (end of the block) - Delete the block using the
dcommand.
I’m a Brazilian computer engineer based in Germany, passionate about tech, science, photography, and languages.
I’ve been programming for about two decades already, exploring everything from mobile apps and web development to machine learning. These days I focus on cloud SRE and data engineering.
I volunteer in the open source and Python communities, helping organize PyCon DE and PyData Berlin, mentoring, and contributing with code and translations.
On my blog, I share Linux tips, setup guides, and personal notes I’ve written for future reference. I hope others find them helpful as well. The content is available in multiple languages.
Browse my gallery for some of my photography.
Away from the keyboard, you’ll find me at concerts, playing clarinet, cycling, scuba diving, or exploring new places, cultures, and cuisines.
Always happy to connect! 🙂