How do I reverse selected lines order in Vim?

Question

For example, if I have four lines as follows:

the first line
the second line
the third line
the fourth line

I want to reverse them to

the fourth line
the third line
the second line
the first line

How could I do this in Vim?

:command! -bar -range=% Reverse <line1>,<line2>global/^/m<line1>-1 https://vi.stackexchange.com/a/2107/10254 — qeatzy, Dec 19 '17 at 08:52

score 143 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 14 '23 at 17:14

143

To reverse all the lines in a file,

:global/^/move 0

Abbreviated:

:g/^/m0

For an explanation see

:help 12.4

which also shows how to reverse just a range of lines.

edited Feb 14 '23 at 17:14

icc97

595

answered Sep 18 '10 at 00:35

garyjohn

35,330

17

Great tip on the exact help section! To summarize: 1. set a marker at the last line you want reverse (I name the marker 'a' using ma), 2. move cursor to the first line of the block, 3. type :'a,.g/^/m 'a – Brent Faust Dec 06 '13 at 19:25
1

:help 12.4. – mcp Apr 03 '22 at 22:57

score 121 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 16 '12 at 14:01

121

Select the desired lines, hit !, and in the resulting prompt pipe the lines through tac a la :'<,'>!tac. See man tac for more details.

answered Aug 16 '12 at 14:01

Rhys Ulerich

1,319

4

To select the lines, use shift+v to enter visual line mode, then j to add lines to the selection. – wisbucky May 21 '14 at 21:46
I can confirm that this works in windows with gvim, as well! Otherwise, you have to use absolute line numbers (maybe you can use relative, but you have to be careful) with the :g/^/m0 (which is also really hard to remember) ... So, essentially, tac should be with vim no matter what platform you're on, BUT it's not 100% vimscript, BUT who cares :P – dylnmc Mar 12 '18 at 13:27
tac isn't fully-native vim handling, but, the 'm'ove command takes a line number and that's not always reasonable. I often use a mark as part of a range, so :.,'a!tac works with minimal effort. – studog Sep 26 '18 at 13:23
After using shift+v, you can use } to reach up to the next paragraph, or empty vertical space. Also, man tac: concatenate and print files in reverse. – nilon Aug 10 '19 at 03:58
This is so money!!! – mcp Apr 03 '22 at 23:05
2

(Hitting ! autofills :'<'>! when there is a selection.) – mcp Aug 25 '22 at 20:20
Also great with vip to select the current paragraph, followed by ! which automatically inserts :'<,'>! followed by tac. In short what you end up tipping to reverse the current paragraph is vip!tac. – Paul Rougieux Feb 20 '23 at 14:39

score 46 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 03 '13 at 17:18

46

On Mac OS X, tac does not exist, but you can use tail -r to the same effect:

:%!tail -r

This also works nicely for visual mode:

:'<,'>!tail -r

Excerpt from tail(1)'s manpage:

The -r option causes the input to be displayed in reverse order, by line. Additionally, this option changes the meaning of the -b, -c and -n options. When the -r option is specified, these options specify the number of bytes, lines or 512-byte blocks to display, instead of the bytes, lines or blocks from the beginning or end of the input from which to begin the display. The default for the -r option is to display all of the input.

answered Jun 03 '13 at 17:18

Thomas Perl

569

4

Excellent! So to provide 'tac' under OS X: alias tac='tail -r' – Brent Faust Dec 06 '13 at 19:27
5

You can also brew install coreutils and use gtac. – Andrew Marshall Apr 11 '14 at 03:25
1

Genius. Never thought of using ! commands for this type of visual line manipulation. – Charlie Dalsass May 15 '19 at 15:20
Most elegant one of all! – Ambareesh Oct 18 '22 at 17:26
It's a pity -r isn't a valid option for GNU tail, otherwise we'd have one nice, concise solution that works on Macs and Linux at least. – Desty Aug 15 '23 at 20:09

horta · Answer 4 · 2016-06-14T13:39:31.823

For those more comfortable with Visual mode:
1. Identify the line number above the selection you want flipped using :set nu.
2. Shift-V to highlight selection you want flipped (visual mode).
3. :g/^/m <Line number from step 1>.

Note that in visual mode it will automatically show up as :'<,'>g/^/m <Line number> when you type in the command from 3.

This command works by moving the selection one line at a time into the line number that you give it. When the second item gets pushed into the line number given, it pushes the first down to line number + 1. Then the third pushes the first and second down and so on until the entire list has been pushed into the single line number resulting in a reverse ordered list.

You can use the '< instead of entering the line number manually. Just start the selection one line earlier and execute :'<,'>g/^/m'<. — Palec, Sep 15 '16 at 09:06

Aaron Thoma · Answer 5 · 2017-01-12T18:31:43.383

7

A command :Rev[erse] and optional mappings for your vimrc, so you don't have to remember and perform the non-obvious steps of this recipe:

" Reverse the lines of the whole file or a visually highlighted block.
    " :Rev is a shorter prefix you can use.
    " Adapted from http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/vim/message/34305
command! -nargs=0 -bar -range=% Reverse
    \       let save_mark_t = getpos("'t")
    \<bar>      <line2>kt
    \<bar>      exe "<line1>,<line2>g/^/m't"
    \<bar>  call setpos("'t", save_mark_t)

nmap <Leader>r :Reverse<CR>
xmap <Leader>r :Reverse<CR>

(:xmap maps for Visual but not Select mode, as :help mapmode-x advises for mapping printable characters.)

_{(Based on: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/vim/message/34305 )}

edited Jan 12 '17 at 18:31

answered Feb 09 '12 at 11:10

Aaron Thoma

710

This should be the accepted answer IMO. Most generally useful and I don't have to remember :'<,'>g/^/m'< :) – Eliot Jan 11 '17 at 22:01
1

@Eliot, thanks! :) (I added a bit of 'bonus content'. ;) ) – Aaron Thoma Jan 12 '17 at 18:14
How can I say selection start -1 in this case? Because the move starts at this point. – SergioAraujo Feb 17 '18 at 10:31
@SergioAraujo: Is something like :-1,+1Rev what you are looking for? Know that you can visually select the range you want to reverse, e.g.: V7j:Rev. If that doesn’t answer your question, I haven’t understood it, so you’d need to elaborate or rephrase it for me. – Aaron Thoma Feb 17 '18 at 15:30

SergioAraujo · Answer 6 · 2018-02-17T11:03:14.247

4

Let' say you are at the line 3, hence we have a range 3 to 6. Just type.

:3,6g/^/m2

edited Feb 17 '18 at 11:03

answered Feb 17 '18 at 10:25

SergioAraujo

261
3
6

1

You can leave the current line’s number implicit: With the cursor on your range’s first line, you can shorten to :,6g/^/m2; or when on the range’s last line: :3,g/^/m2; and :3,6g/^/m2 works from anywhere in the file. – Aaron Thoma Feb 17 '18 at 15:47

How do I reverse selected lines order in Vim?

6 Answers6