Vim enclose in quotes

This is intended to answer the specific question that you asked. You state that you have visually selected some text and want to surround it with quotes. To do that, run:

:s/\%V\(.*\)\%V/"\1"/

To break that into parts:

• : allows you to enter ex commands.

• s/old/new/ is the usual substitute command.

• \%V is an under-documented atom to mark the beginning of the selected text

• \(.*\) selects everything and save it into selection 1.

• The second \%V signifies the end of the selected text.

• The replacement text is everyting that was selected, which is stored in \1, surrounded by quotes: "\1".

This command applies line by line. So, you may get unwanted results if the selected text extends over multiple lines.

You should research more. What Vim command(s) can be used to quote/unquote words?

Quoting:

surround.vim is going to be your easiest answer. If you are truly set against using it, here are some examples for what you can do. Not necessarily the most efficient, but that's why surround.vim was written.

• Quote a word, using single quotes ciw'Ctrl+r"'
  • ciw - Delete the word the cursor is on, and end up in insert mode.
  • ' - add the first quote.
  • Ctrl+r" - Insert the contents of the " register, aka the last yank/delete.
  • ' - add the closing quote.
    
    
• Unquote a word that's enclosed in single quotes di'hPl2x
  • di' - Delete the word enclosed by single quotes.
  • hP - Move the cursor left one place (on top of the opening quote) and put the just deleted text before the quote.
  • l - Move the cursor right one place (on top of the opening quote).
  • 2x - Delete the two quotes.
    
    
• Change single quotes to double quotes va':s/\%V'\%V/"/g
  • va' - Visually select the quoted word and the quotes.
  • :s/ - Start a replacement.
  • \%V'\%V - Only match single quotes that are within the visually selected region.
  • /"/g - Replace them all with double quotes.