Vim object-select with syntax-aware text-objects

I just learned about the truly awesome object-select capabilities of vim. With the cursor within some "text object", a set of simple verbs can select or operate on the whole object. For example, with t开发者_如何学Gohe cursor anywhere inside the quotes below (e.g. over the 'o'):

print "Hello, world"
           ^

The command vi" will select the whole phrase inside the quotes. The same capability works with a number of "text objects" that vim defines, including words, sentences, paragraphs, and characters enclosed by quotes, parentheses, and braces.

But now I want this notion of a "text object" to be aware of the language I'm writing. For example, consider the following python:

re.sub("[^A-Z ]", " ", string)

I'd like to be able to place the cursor somewhere over that, and to select the whole thing. The function call is a well-defined syntactic construct, but it isn't a "word", "sentence", "paragraph", or enclosed in quotes or braces.

Are there any plugins or vimrc hacks out there that define these sorts of language-dependent "text objects"?

This script uses indentation to define a text-object. It'll work for many languages if you're formatting according to common standards, and guaranteed for python.

Although it's is possible to construct maps that will select an entire syntax region, that wouldn't work with your given scenario since there isn't a "function call" syntax region.

One option is to select the parenthetical expression and then extend that backwards to include the function call.

va)oB

• va) selects the parenthetical expression
• o toggles which end of the visual selection the cursor is at and which direction you're expanding.
• B moves the cursor backwards one WORD. That is, to the character just after the whitespace previous to the cursor.

There is a plugin out there to create user defined text-objects. Doesn't have a huge rating, but it might be worth a shot.

My take on the matter: https://github.com/ngn/vim-select-by-syntax

I didn't really want to make it a text object, but anyway, it solves the same problem.

My SameSyntaxMotion plugin provides mappings to jump to the borders and next [count] occurrences of text highlighted in the same way as under the cursor. The ay and iy text objects will select the surrounding text that belongs to the same syntax group, or is highlighted the same way.