Operate until pattern

In my daily Vim workflow I make regular use of c, d, and sometimes y. When combined with t, I can quickly _ d elete or c hange the text on a line up un t _il a character. For example:

• dtX – deletes everything up until the first X. The X can be any character at all.
• ctX – changes everything up until the first X. That is, deletes and leaves you in insert mode.
• ytX – yanks (copies) everything up until the first X.

I recently discovered a more powerful way to use these three options d, c, y: With a pattern rather than a single character. Simply use /some_pattern and then <Enter> after either d, c, or y:

• d/foo<Enter> – delete up until foo is found
• c/bar<Enter> – change everything up until bar
• y/pattern<Enter> – yank everything up until pattern

Watch the gif below for how this works. I’m definitely going to be using these on a regular basis now, especially for operations I want to repeat over and over on successive lines.

In the video below I make use of this pattern matching tip. Here I have a list of VimTricks and their publish date. Let’s say I want to remove everything up until the date. I can simply press d/\d<Enter> to delete everything on the line up until the matched pattern, any digit. Then I can press . on any of the next lines to repeat: