Editing a Macro

Paste it, fix it, yank it back. Macros are text.

Keys: "ap, "ay$

Because a macro is just register contents, you can paste it into the buffer, edit any keystroke, and yank it back. This is how macros get refined without a full re-record.

Recording is the easy way to get a macro. But re-recording every time you want a small fix is painful. Faster: paste the macro into a scratch buffer, edit the keystrokes, yank it back. The macro is text.

The recipe

Suppose macro a is almost right but has a bug. 1. Open a scratch line: oEsc. 2. Paste the macro: "ap. The keystrokes appear as text. 3. Edit them — replace dawi with daWi, fix a typo, whatever. 4. Select the corrected text (e.g. 0v$ or just place cursor at start) and yank it back into a: "ay$. 5. Undo the buffer changes (u, u) so the keystroke text doesn't pollute your file. 6. @a — try the corrected macro.

See also: Recording and Playing Macros, Macros Are Just Register Contents, Named Registers