Strict Mapping

Get ready, because things are about to get a little wild.

So far we've used map, nmap, vmap, and imap to create key mappings that will save time. These work, but they have a downside. Run the following commands:

:nmap - dd
:nmap \ -

Now try pressing \ (in normal mode). What happens?

When you press \ Vim sees the mapping and says "I should run - instead". But we've already mapped - to do something else! Vim sees that and says "oh, now I need to run dd", and so it deletes the current line.

When you map keys with these commands Vim will take other mappings into account. This may sound like a good thing at first but in reality it's pure evil. Let's talk about why, but first remove those mappings by running the following commands:

:nunmap -
:nunmap \

Recursion

Run this command:

:nmap dd O<esc>jddk

At first glance it might look like this would map dd to:

• Open a new line above this one.
• Exit insert mode.
• Move back down.
• Delete the current line.
• Move up to the blank line just created.

Effectively this should "clear the current line". Try it.

Vim will seem to freeze when you press dd. If you press <c-c> you'll get Vim back, but there will be a ton of empty lines in your file! What happened?

This mapping is actually recursive! When you press dd, Vim says:

• dd is mapped, so perform the mapping.
  • Open a line.
  • Exit insert mode.
  • Move down a line.
  • dd is mapped, so perform the mapping.
    • Open a line.
    • Exit insert mode.
    • Move down a line.
    • dd is mapped, so perform the mapping, and so on.

This mapping can never finish running! Go ahead and remove this terrible thing with the following command:

:nunmap dd

Side Effects

One downside of the *map commands is the danger of recursing. Another is that their behavior can change if you install a plugin that maps keys they depend on.

When you install a new Vim plugin there's a good chance that you won't use and memorize every mapping it creates. Even if you do, you'd have to go back and look through your ~/.vimrc file to make sure none of your custom mappings use a key that the plugin has mapped.

This would make installing plugins tedious and error-prone. There must be a better way.

Nonrecursive Mapping

Vim offers another set of mapping commands that will not take mappings into account when they perform their actions. Run these commands:

:nmap x dd
:nnoremap \ x

Now press \ and see what happens.

When you press \ Vim ignores the x mapping and does whatever it would do for x by default. Instead of deleting the current line, it deletes the current character.

Each of the *map commands has a *noremap counterpart that ignores other mappings: noremap, nnoremap, vnoremap, and inoremap.

When should you use these nonrecursive variants instead of their normal counterparts?

Always.

No, seriously, always.

Using a bare *map is just asking for pain down the road when you install a plugin or add a new custom mapping. Save yourself the trouble and type the extra characters to make sure it never happens.

Exercises

Convert all the mappings you added to your ~/.vimrc file in the previous chapters to their nonrecursive counterparts.

Read :help unmap.