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Line Manipulation in Vim

Functions for Retrieving Line Positions

  • To get the line number use line().
  • To get both line number and column, use getpos().
  • For the screen column position use virtcol().
  • For the character position use charcol().
  • For the cursor position use getcurpos().

col()

Syntax: 

col({position} [, {window_id}])

Accepted positions:

  • .: The cursor position
  • $: The end of the cursor line (the result is the number of bytes in the cursor line plus one)
  • 'x: position of mark x (if the mark is not set, returns 0)
  • v: In Visual mode: the start of the Visual area (the cursor is the end).
    • When not in Visual mode returns the cursor position.
    • Differs from '< in that it's updated right away.
  • {position} can be [lnum, col]: a List with the line and column number.
    • Most useful when the column is "$", to get the last column of a specific line.
    • When lnum or col is out of range then col() returns 0.

Returns:

The result is a Number: the byte index of the column position given with {position}. The first column is 1. Returns 0 if {position} is invalid or when the window with ID {window_id} is not found.