Incrementing and Decrementing Numbers

21. 3. 2020 · Vim 1/2 · 1 min read · [edit]

Some of you might know that pressing <C-a>/<C-x> in normal mode increases/decreases the next number on the line the cursor is currently on:

1

There are 12 apples. -<C-a>-> There are 13 apples.

But did you also know that it can handle other bases and even alphabetical characters (worked for me but might need to be configured – see this wiki article):

1
2
3

There are 0b1100 apples. -<C-a>-> There are 0b1101 apples.
There are 0xc apples. -<C-x>-> There are 0xb apples.
This is 'a'. -<C-a>-> This is 'b'.

Equipped with this knowledge, one can easily add to and subtract from any number (10<C-a>), create a list of numbers in a given base (a relatively simple macro), play around with Caesar ciphers and generally do many things that would likely not be possible in other text editors.