Create a series of incrementing numbers in vim

:.,$!perl -pne 'for $i ("0001".."0004"){ s/XXXX/$i/ if($i == $.) }'
given lines of the form 123|XXXX|1000 ... 123|XXXX|1011 each 'XXXX' will be replaced with a serial number between 0001 and 0004.
Sample Output 
123|XXXX|1000
123|XXXX|1001
123|XXXX|1010
123|XXXX|1011
---
123|0001|1000
123|0002|1001
123|0003|1010
123|0004|1011

0
By: bartonski
2010-02-11 03:56:26
5
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What Others Think

That doesn't work for me. If I want to print numbers : :.!printf '\%s\n' {0..100}
sputnick · 844 weeks ago
Sputnick, The point of my command isn't just creating a series of numbers, but also replacing all occurrences of 'XXXX' within a selected text area in vim with serial numbers. What happens when you run this: echo "fooXXXXbar" | perl -pne 'for $i ("0001".."0004"){ s/XXXX/$i/ if($i == $.) }'
bartonski · 844 weeks ago
foo0001bar but the part I don't understand is the beginning : ".,$!" I can't type that in vim ! In general, a vil command start with ":"
sputnick · 844 weeks ago
Right. Paste the command in after ':'. ".,$!" means 'from the current line to the end of the file'. Strictly speaking, the command should look like <esc>:.,$!perl -pne 'for $i ("0001".."0004"){ s/XXXX/$i/ if($i == $.) }'
bartonski · 844 weeks ago
Added initial ':' to command.
bartonski · 844 weeks ago

What do you think?

Any thoughts on this command? Does it work on your machine? Can you do the same thing with only 14 characters?

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