TIL: Vim macros

I was refactoring a bunch of imports. We use remix-utils in our Remix codebase at work and we have been on v4 for quite a long time. This version exported some utility functions for http responses

import { badRequest, serverError, forbidden } from 'remix-utils'

Latest versions do not export these functions anymore, so I replicated them in a utility file.

import { json } from '@remix-run/node';

export function badRequest<Data = unknown>(data: Data, init?: Omit<ResponseInit, 'status'>) {
  return json(data, { ...init, status: 400 });
}

// ... other HTTP helpers

I wish I could’ve just find-and-replace-all, but some of the imports were mixed with other non-http imports!

The flow was:

1. Grep for remix-utils imports
2. Replace the import with ~/utils/http.server
3. Save the buffer
4. Close the buffer
5. Repeat

I cannot automate the grep’ing, but I can for sure automate the rest. Finally, the time to learn about Vim macros has come to save my sanity.

First, start recording the macro pressing q. Then, press the key you want to use a register. I chose j:

qj

Second, record the actions. I have a remap on <leader>bd to delete the buffer:

ci'~/utils/http.server<esc>:w<leader>bd

This will:

1. Change the text inside the ' quotes to ~/utils/http.server
2. Save the buffer
3. Close the buffer

And to finish, stop recording the macro pressing q again.

q

Now I just had to play the macro with @j and it would repeat the whole sequence 🤯. I saved so much time with this!