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Get numlock working with PuTTY and vim

Tim White — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:34:45 +0000

PuTTY

By default, your keyboard's numlock enabled number pad doesn't work well with console applications running on a PuTTY SSH connection. The numpad's numbers seem to get mapped to inserting the characters "q" thru "y". This is especially annoying when using vim.

To get numlock working, open PuTTY's configuration window, goto Terminal > Features. Enable the "Disable application keypad mode" checkbox.

If you want this setting to persist, make sure to select a saved session and click "Save".

Skip .svn directories when using grep

Tim White — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:56:08 +0000

grep returns .svn metadata files

What You'll Need:
grep 2.5.3+

I can't count how many times a day I use grep. It is an indispensable tool for searching the contents of configuration files, data files, and source code.

One of the annoying side effects of grep is when searching a Subversion working copy recursively, all the hidden .svn directories also get searched. This can yield a lot of false positive matches since these directories contain "pristine copies of all version-controlled files".

If you've got grep 2.5.3 or higher, it's easy to ignore .svn directories with the "--exclude-dir" option:

$ grep -r --exclude-dir='.svn' 'my search string' /some/directory

But that's a lot to type in each time you want to search your source code. To save keystrokes, try setting up an alias in your home directory's .bashrc file that utilizes the --exclude-dir option (for Mac, use your home directory's .profile file.). I call mine devgrep:

alias devgrep="grep --exclude-dir='.svn'"

After adding the alias, don't forget to source your .bashrc:

$ source ~/.bashrc

Now whenever you need to search a Subversion working copy recursively, use the new alias to skip .svn directories:

$ devgrep -rin 'doctype' /var/www/html/templates
./foo.tpl:1:
./bar.tpl:1:
./baz.phtml:1:

You can also exclude file types when grep'ing. If you're a vim user, it can be helpful to skip .swp files in your alias:

alias devgrep="grep --exclude-dir='.svn' --exclude='*.swp'"

Yet another workaround would be to use ack - a Perl based, juiced up version of grep with a lot more features.

Quickly indent multiple lines in vi/vim

Tim White — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 02:25:50 +0000

Indenting lines of programming code is essential for readability. Indenting multiple lines at once is a feature that any useful code editing software should have.

As a programmer, I went far too long not knowing how to do this with vim (one of my favorite editors). It's so easy, even Mike Tyson could do it. And he never learned to read.

Enter VISUAL LINE mode by holding [SHIFT] and hitting the "v" key.
Use the arrow keys or "j" and "k" to select the lines you want to indent.
Hit the ">" character (hold [SHIFT] and hit the "." key) to indent.

Then, you can repeat the indent using the "." key. Likewise, you can type the "<" character to outdent the selected lines.