How to get visually selected text in VimScript

Question

I\'m able to get the cursor position with getpos(), but I want to retrieve the selected text within a line, that is \'<,\'>.

Answer 1

I think you should use "clipboard resgisiter".

For more detail, you might read help ':h clipboard-autoselect'

If you enable this option( set clipboard=unnamed,autoselected),
you ca get selected text more easily like this " let l:text = @* "

Answer 2

This is quite an old question, but since I can imagine lots of people will come across it at some point, here's my modified version of @xolox answer

function! VisualSelection()
    if mode()=="v"
        let [line_start, column_start] = getpos("v")[1:2]
        let [line_end, column_end] = getpos(".")[1:2]
    else
        let [line_start, column_start] = getpos("'<")[1:2]
        let [line_end, column_end] = getpos("'>")[1:2]
    end
    if (line2byte(line_start)+column_start) > (line2byte(line_end)+column_end)
        let [line_start, column_start, line_end, column_end] =
        \   [line_end, column_end, line_start, column_start]
    end
    let lines = getline(line_start, line_end)
    if len(lines) == 0
            return ''
    endif
    let lines[-1] = lines[-1][: column_end - 1]
    let lines[0] = lines[0][column_start - 1:]
    return join(lines, "\n")
endfunction

1. '< and '> don't get updated when the user is still in visual mode, thus . and v need to be used in that case.
2. It is possible to select text backwards in visual mode, which means '> comes before '< in the text. In those cases the two positions simply need to be reversed.
3. While this isn't in my version of the function, one could choose to reverse the string if the selection was backwards. Here's a snipped that shows how to do this.

Assuming the variable "reverse" is defined when the marks are in reverse order:

if exists("reverse")
    let lines_r = []
    for line in lines
        call insert(lines_r, join(reverse(split(line, ".\\zs"))))
    endfor
    return join(lines_r, "\n")
else
    return join(lines, "\n")
end

Answer 3

I came here asking the same question as the topic starter and tried the code by Luc Hermitte but it didn't work for me (when the visual selection is still in effect while my code is executed) so I wrote the function below, which seems to work okay:

function! s:get_visual_selection()
    let [line_start, column_start] = getpos("'<")[1:2]
    let [line_end, column_end] = getpos("'>")[1:2]
    let lines = getline(line_start, line_end)
    if len(lines) == 0
        return ''
    endif
    let lines[-1] = lines[-1][: column_end - 2]
    let lines[0] = lines[0][column_start - 1:]
    return join(lines, "\n")
endfunction

I hope this is useful to someone!

Update (May 2013): Actually that's not quite correct yet, I recently fixed the following bug in one of the Vim plug-ins I published:

function! s:get_visual_selection()
    " Why is this not a built-in Vim script function?!
    let [line_start, column_start] = getpos("'<")[1:2]
    let [line_end, column_end] = getpos("'>")[1:2]
    let lines = getline(line_start, line_end)
    if len(lines) == 0
        return ''
    endif
    let lines[-1] = lines[-1][: column_end - (&selection == 'inclusive' ? 1 : 2)]
    let lines[0] = lines[0][column_start - 1:]
    return join(lines, "\n")
endfunction

Update (May 2014): This (trivial) code is hereby licensed as public domain. Do with it what you want. Credits are appreciated but not required.

Answer 4

This function taken from vim-asterisk also works in <expr> mappings, supports block-wise selections and multibyte columns.

function! GetVisualSelection()
    let mode = mode()
    let end_col = s:curswant() is s:INT.MAX ? s:INT.MAX : s:get_col_in_visual('.')
    let current_pos = [line('.'), end_col]
    let other_end_pos = [line('v'), s:get_col_in_visual('v')]
    let [begin, end] = s:sort_pos([current_pos, other_end_pos])
    if s:is_exclusive() && begin[1] !=# end[1]
        " Decrement column number for :set selection=exclusive
        let end[1] -= 1
    endif
    if mode !=# 'V' && begin ==# end
        let lines = [s:get_pos_char(begin)]
    elseif mode ==# "\<C-v>"
        let [min_c, max_c] = s:sort_num([begin[1], end[1]])
        let lines = map(range(begin[0], end[0]), '
        \   getline(v:val)[min_c - 1 : max_c - 1]
        \ ')
    elseif mode ==# 'V'
        let lines = getline(begin[0], end[0])
    else
        if begin[0] ==# end[0]
            let lines = [getline(begin[0])[begin[1]-1 : end[1]-1]]
        else
            let lines = [getline(begin[0])[begin[1]-1 :]]
            \         + (end[0] - begin[0] < 2 ? [] : getline(begin[0]+1, end[0]-1))
            \         + [getline(end[0])[: end[1]-1]]
        endif
    endif
    return join(lines, "\n") . (mode ==# 'V' ? "\n" : '')
endfunction

let s:INT = { 'MAX': 2147483647 }

" @return Number: return multibyte aware column number in Visual mode to select
function! s:get_col_in_visual(pos) abort
    let [pos, other] = [a:pos, a:pos is# '.' ? 'v' : '.']
    let c = col(pos)
    let d = s:compare_pos(s:getcoord(pos), s:getcoord(other)) > 0
    \   ? len(s:get_pos_char([line(pos), c - (s:is_exclusive() ? 1 : 0)])) - 1
    \   : 0
    return c + d
endfunction

function! s:get_multi_col(pos) abort
    let c = col(a:pos)
    return c + len(s:get_pos_char([line(a:pos), c])) - 1
endfunction

" Helper:

function! s:is_visual(mode) abort
    return a:mode =~# "[vV\<C-v>]"
endfunction

" @return Boolean
function! s:is_exclusive() abort
    return &selection is# 'exclusive'
endfunction

function! s:curswant() abort
    return winsaveview().curswant
endfunction

" @return coordinate: [Number, Number]
function! s:getcoord(expr) abort
    return getpos(a:expr)[1:2]
endfunction

"" Return character at given position with multibyte handling
" @arg [Number, Number] as coordinate or expression for position :h line()
" @return String
function! s:get_pos_char(...) abort
    let pos = get(a:, 1, '.')
    let [line, col] = type(pos) is# type('') ? s:getcoord(pos) : pos
    return matchstr(getline(line), '.', col - 1)
endfunction

" @return int index of cursor in cword
function! s:get_pos_in_cword(cword, ...) abort
    return (s:is_visual(get(a:, 1, mode(1))) || s:get_pos_char() !~# '\k') ? 0
    \   : s:count_char(searchpos(a:cword, 'bcn')[1], s:get_multi_col('.'))
endfunction

" multibyte aware
function! s:count_char(from, to) abort
    let chars = getline('.')[a:from-1:a:to-1]
    return len(split(chars, '\zs')) - 1
endfunction

" 7.4.341
" http://ftp.vim.org/vim/patches/7.4/7.4.341
if v:version > 704 || v:version == 704 && has('patch341')
    function! s:sort_num(xs) abort
        return sort(a:xs, 'n')
    endfunction
else
    function! s:_sort_num_func(x, y) abort
        return a:x - a:y
    endfunction
    function! s:sort_num(xs) abort
        return sort(a:xs, 's:_sort_num_func')
    endfunction
endif

function! s:sort_pos(pos_list) abort
    " pos_list: [ [x1, y1], [x2, y2] ]
    return sort(a:pos_list, 's:compare_pos')
endfunction

function! s:compare_pos(x, y) abort
    return max([-1, min([1,(a:x[0] == a:y[0]) ? a:x[1] - a:y[1] : a:x[0] - a:y[0]])])
endfunction

Answer 5

Modified version of @DarkWiiPlayer answer.

The differences are:

1. It test &selection to give the proper functionality when

:behave mswin

As well as the default:

:behave xterm

2. It also works properly for visual block selections testing visualmode()

I'm also returned the visual selection as an array of lines (becuase that is what I needed). However I've left the return join(lines, "\n") in commented out if you need a signal text block instead.

function! VisualSelection()
    if mode()=="v"
        let [line_start, column_start] = getpos("v")[1:2]
        let [line_end, column_end] = getpos(".")[1:2]
    else
        let [line_start, column_start] = getpos("'<")[1:2]
        let [line_end, column_end] = getpos("'>")[1:2]
    end

    if (line2byte(line_start)+column_start) > (line2byte(line_end)+column_end)
        let [line_start, column_start, line_end, column_end] =
        \   [line_end, column_end, line_start, column_start]
    end
    let lines = getline(line_start, line_end)
    if len(lines) == 0
            return ['']
    endif
    if &selection ==# "exclusive"
        let column_end -= 1 "Needed to remove the last character to make it match the visual selction
    endif
    if visualmode() ==# "\<C-V>"
        for idx in range(len(lines))
            let lines[idx] = lines[idx][: column_end - 1]
            let lines[idx] = lines[idx][column_start - 1:]
        endfor
    else
        let lines[-1] = lines[-1][: column_end - 1]
        let lines[ 0] = lines[ 0][column_start - 1:]
    endif
    return lines  "use this return if you want an array of text lines
    "return join(lines, "\n") "use this return instead if you need a text block
endfunction