Earlier today I was asked how to comment out multiple lines in Vim. Unfortunately I wasn’t too sure what the best way was and the only one I knew felt less than friendly. Anyway – after some research I’ve nailed a few different methods and thought I’d post them here for people to choose their favourite one.

1. Visual Insert

This is the simplest method by far. Quick fire steps are:

1. Ctrl + V (enter block-visual selection mode)
2. Select the first character of the lines you want to comment out using “hjkl” or cursor keys
3. Shift + i
4. Type your comment marker: “//”, “#”, etc.
5. Escape
6. The end – there is a tiny delay as the comments are now put into your other lines.

2. Visual Search/Replace

This is similar to the above but has a slightly more arcane method to adding the comments.

1. Shift + V (enter line selection mode)
2. Select the lines you want to comment out.
3. Type:

:s/^/# [Return]

or

:s/^/\/\/ [Return]

The first will replace the the beginning of the line (^) with a hash (#) and the second will do the same with a double slash (//). Note the extra slashes to escape.

3 Line Number Range

Similar to above this is the only method I could think of and its hardly very friendly but it gets the job done.

Pick the line numbers of the first and last lines you want commented – this is rarely simple.

Type:

:2,10s/^/#

That will put hash comments at the start of lines 2 to 10.

4. Using Markers

I’m not fond of this method as I’m still not 100% on markers. In fact I’m around about…..0% on markers as I’d not heard of them until now!! Woo for learning!

Anyway – markers. Oh yes, I’ll do a nice list of steps again:

1. On the first line while in command mode type “ma” (no colon required here)
2. Go to the last line of your intended block.
3. Type:

:'a,. s/^/# /

In English that means: Form marker “a” to here (.) perform this command: s/^/# /

5. Plugins

You could just skip all that and install a Vim plugin. The advantage being they have more features. The disadvantage being you’d have to make sure all the servers you use have this plugin otherwise you’re stumped.

• comments.vim
• ToggleCommentify.vim