Tip #322: text template with placeholders

Many scripts/ftplugin provide text or code templates. Sadly none of the marks the places where you are supposed to "fill in the form".
My own code templates for C/C++ insert a triple percent (%%%) where you are supposed to enter something. I mapped ;; to find the next %%% and change them.
All the template mappings are insert-mode only, while the "skip to next placeholder" is both insert and normal mode enabled.

A complete for-loop template for C++ looks like:

:imap <buffer> ;fo <C-O>mzfor( %%%; %%%; %%%)<CR>{ // %%%<CR>%%%<CR>}<CR><C-O>'z;;

The command to go to the next placeholder is this:

:imap <buffer> ;; <C-O>/%%%<CR><C-O>c3l
:nmap <buffer> ;; /%%%<CR>c3l


Every time I need a for-loop ;fo produces this ( _ is the cursor position) :
for( _; %%% ; %%%)
{ // %%%
  %%%
}

Now I enter starting value (i=0):
for( i=0_; %%% ; %%%)
{ // %%%
  %%%
}

and go to the condition using ;;
for( i=0; _ ; %%%)
{ // %%%
  %%%
}

and so forth.

The choice of %%% proved to be almost universal, it even works in MATLAB or LaTeX where % is the comment character.

Even if you forget to replace one %%%, that's not a problem as the compiler flags is as a syntax error (except MATLAB and LaTeX, of course).

It made my life easier, maybe it works for you.


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