Registers: a ring, not slots

Everything is captured

Every y, d, c and x goes onto a ring that holds 4096 entries, so there is nothing to decide when you yank. p and P paste the newest entry, exactly like vim’s unnamed register. Anything older is one picker away.

One command is one entry: 3dd pushes a single three-line entry. Pushing text the ring already has moves it to the front instead of storing it twice.

lstring.c The ring and its picker 1 / 6 play

1. start The cursor is in luaS_hash.
2. 1 dd dd deletes a line. Every y, d, c and x goes onto the ring, and nothing is overwritten.
3. 2 yyjdd A yank, then another delete. The ring now holds three entries, newest first.
4. 3 "p "p opens the picker over the ring. The highlighted entry is shown in the preview.
5. 4 seed Type to filter. Every word must appear somewhere in the entry.
6. 5 Enter Enter pastes it and moves it to the front, so a plain p now pastes it again.

In the picker, typing filters by substring: every word you type must appear somewhere in the entry, in any order, ignoring case. Matches stay newest first. ¶ marks a linewise entry, ▚ a rectangle. Ctrl-A shows the one-character entries (a lone x), which are hidden by default. The entry you choose moves to the front of the ring, so a plain p or . afterwards pastes it again.

Named registers: capture first, name after

For text you will paste many times, use the named space. "n in front of an operator runs it as usual, then opens the command line with :yname prefilled, waiting for a name.

lstring.c Named registers: capture first, name after 1 / 5 play

1. start The cursor is on luaS_hashlongstr.
2. 1 "nyy "nyy yanks the line, then puts :yname on the command line.
3. 2 aEnter Type a name. The entry lives outside the ring, so it never falls off the end.
4. 3 7j"np "np opens the picker over the names, with the entry in the preview.
5. 4 Enter Enter pastes it.

Named entries live outside the ring, so they are never evicted. Using an existing name replaces its entry. If you back out of the :yname prompt, the capture goes to the ring, so "ndd followed by Esc is still a normal delete. :{range}yname x yanks a range straight into x without the prompt.

The system clipboard

"+y and "+p use the system clipboard, and "* is another spelling of the same register. The clipboard is never mirrored automatically: deleting a line does not overwrite what you copied in another program.

It works over OSC 52, so copying works over SSH too. Many terminals refuse to let programs read the clipboard, and "+p tells you when yours does. Pasting into bi with the terminal’s own paste shortcut always works, and arrives as one undo step.

Pasting over a selection

In visual mode p replaces the selection. The only difference between p and P is what happens to the text that was replaced:

A flash on what you yanked

A yank changes nothing visible, so what it copied lights up briefly: for yank_flash milliseconds, 150 by default. A blockwise yank lights each row of the rectangle. Deletes and pastes do not flash, because their effect is already visible. :set yank_flash 0 turns it off.