Vim Function to Generate a Comment in Go

Photo by Kaysha on Unsplash

OK, I’ll admit it. Sometimes I don’t add comments to describe my Go structs and functions. There, I said it. And after my linter properly chastises me, I dutifully work down the list of errors, adding the code comments… One at a time. I know… I know… I should just add the comments while I’m writing the code.

Well, today I found that task tedious. So I decided to write my very first Vim function. What does it do? When you put your cursor on a word in normal mode, then call the function, a comment block will be inserted above your method or struct that starts your new comment.

How did I do it? I’ll show you! Remember though, this is my first Vim function in Vimscript, and I’m pretty new to it. Be gentle.

Here’s a line by line breakdown:

1. Just a comment describing our Vim function
2. The function declaration. My function is name GenerateComment
3. Get the current line number where the cursor is at. Assign that to lineNumber
4. Get the word under the cursor. Assign that to…