On , I learnt ...

How to use custom functions with :cdo

Vim’s :cdo command lets you run an Ex command in each entry in the quickfix list. This is useful for large-scale refactoring work.

One way to leverage this is to write a macro to perform the required update then run it with :cdo:

:cdo normal @q

Macros are powerful and many update operations can be done this way. However, sometimes the necessary update is too complex for a macro. This happens when there are several “categories” of update required and conditional logic is required to determine the appropriate operation.

For such circumstances you can write a custom Vim function and call that for each quickfix entry.

For example, I used this technique to factor out around 1,400 F841 flake8 violations from a project today.

For flake8 work, the quickfix list can be populated by setting makeprg=flake8 and running :make.

As there were several distinct categories of violation that required a separate update operation to resolve, I created a FixF841Error function that inspected the line in question to determine the appropriate remedy. Something like this:

function! FixF841Error()
    " Example the line of the error to determine what fix is required.
    let line = getline('.')
    if line =~ 'as e:'
        " Handle scenario of unused exception variable
        ...
    elseif line =~ '^\s\+\w\+ = factory'
        " Handle scenario of unused test factory variable
        ...
    else
        echom "Unable to fix"
    endif
endfunction

After source-ing the function I ran:

:cdo call FixF841Error()

to resolve the majority of the errors.

Would have taken all day without this.