Delete everything between two brackets in Vim, including newlines

Question

Say I have the following python array literal:

def f():
    arr = [
        1,          
        2,
        3   
    ]  

I want to delete everything in the brackets so that it becomes this:

def f():
    arr = [] 

How can I do that with minimal commands in vim?

---

These are some of my attempts:

• Using di] will delete the text, but not the empty newlines, leaving a lot of whitespace I'd have to delete:

  def f():
      arr = [         
      ]
  

• Using da] will delete the newlines, but also the brackets:

  def f():
      arr =
  

Mathilda

Answer 1

You can simply do:

ca[[]<Esc>

or:

ca][]<Esc>

See :help text-objects.

Wheresoever

Just doing ci[ worked better for me. Left the brackets. – Rarity

Answer 2

With your cursor on the first opening bracket ([), press V, followed by %. This will select the block which you then can join J, followed by di[.

Alight

Is it easy to do this a million times? – Menadione

Answer 3

Select the lines in visual mode (v) and use J to remove newlines. Then use di[.

Or if there are many lines, di[ first, after which you move the cursor to top line and then J. This will potentially leave a space between the brackets which has to be removed with x.

Cristobal

That's pretty good. I can va] to select every line between the brackets, J to join then, then di] to delete the array contents. So va]Jdi] overall. – Mathilda

That's a neat way too do it too. – Cristobal

Answer 4

I find using a code formatter shortcut saves a lot of time

If you install vim prettier, you could do di[ <leader>p

Using the formatter in JS for example means I don't have to remove extra spacing, jump to end of line to insert ;, or fix indenting etc

Yaw

Answer 5

You can use a regex like this:

:%s/\[\_.\{-}\]/[]/g

\_. to match any character including newline, and \{-} is the non-greedy command

Norrie