Copy from one register to another - VIM

Question

How to copy the contents of one register to another without pasting on clip board? I'd yanked one text and it got yanked in the default " register. Now i wan't to copy another text without deleting/overwriting " register. So I wan't to move the contents of " register to say some a or b register so that I can copy the new text inside ". How to do this?

Answer 1

You can do something like this:

let @a = getreg('"')

That'll copy the " register to the a register.

Answer 2

To copy or swap values between registers you can use the :let command, for example to copy the contents of the b register to a:

:let @a=@b

Or copy the contents of the " register to a:

:let @a=@"

Check this Vim Tip for some good key mapping suggestions:

• Comfortable handling of registers