How to add text to the start or end of every line in Vim

Four orders were charged twice at Byte Burrito last night. The till's report gives you their numbers, one per line, and they're going into the refund script as an array, so each one needs a comma after it.

:%s/$/,/ does every line at once. It's Vim's find and replace, with % for every line and s for substitute, and $ as the thing to find. In a pattern, $ means the end of the line, the spot just after its last character, so replacing it puts a comma there and takes nothing away. One u takes them all off again.

^ is the start of the line, so :%s/^/- / puts - in front of every line. That turns the kitchen's list of fillings into a bulleted list for the menu page, which is written in Markdown.

The start here is column one, in front of any indent. For indented lines, :normal further down does better.

The supplier's order form takes a CSV, and their system wants every name in double quotes. That's text at both ends, and one command still does it. In the pattern, .* matches the whole line, whatever is on it. In the replacement, & stands for whatever matched. So :%s/.*/"&"/ swaps each line for itself with a quote on either side.

Anything can go around the &. :%s/.*/('&'),/ turns carnitas into ('carnitas'),, ready for a SQL insert.

The shop's settings file lists the fillings under a heading, indented two spaces, and YAML wants - in front of each one. This time only three lines need it, and the dash has to go after the indent, where ^ won't put it.

Select the lines first. V selects the line the cursor is on, and j stretches the selection down. Press : and Vim types :'<,'> for you, which means the selected lines. Every command above works on them, :'<,'>s/$/,/ included.

For the indent, type normal and some keys after it. :normal presses those keys on each line in turn, in Normal mode, starting from the beginning of the line. I starts typing after the indent, so :'<,'>normal I- types the dash where it belongs. A starts typing at the end of the line, so :'<,'>normal A, does what $ did. Vim leaves Insert mode by itself at the end of each line.

If you'd rather watch it happen, select a column. Press Ctrl-v (hold Ctrl, press v) and move down with j, then press $ to stretch the block to the end of every line, however long each one is. A starts typing after the block. Only the first line shows your text while you type, and the rest fill in when you press Esc.

For the front of the lines, start the block on the first character, leave out the $, and press I instead of A. A block needs the lines to sit together, so it suits a short run like the three lines of this CSS rule that lost their semicolons. Visual Block mode has the rest.