How to select a range conditionally in vim

I use norm command along with visual selection to perform normal-mode operations on several lines in one go.

Now how to do the range selection based on a condition without switching to Visual selection mode ?

For example, if we want to append a comma(,) to each line till the next blank line. Let’s do this without a visual selection, :.,/^$/-1 norm A, this command will do the above task in one-go.

Command explanation

• : : the starting of command-mode.
• . : the first part of the range selection, were . indicates the current line in range selection
• , : is the separator used between start and end of the range.
• /^$/ : is the pattern for blank line, were ^ is the start and $ end of line.
• -1 : -1 indicates the line before, when it si combined with pattern the line before blank line.
• norm A, : performs normal mode operation A, which will append a , to the end of line.

Now you can use any patterns specified in Ranges doc to select/specify the Range, this blank line pattern is just an example.

This conditional range selection is very useful while recording macro spanning over multiple lines.

Read more about Ranges.