============================================================================== #INTRODUCTION

Vim text objects provide a convenient way to select and operate on various types of objects. These objects include regions surrounded by various types of brackets and various parts of language (ie sentences, paragraphs, etc).

This plugin defines a new text object, based on indentation levels. This is very useful in languages such as Python, in which the syntax defines scope in terms of indentation. Using the objects defined in this plugin, an entire if structure can be quickly selected, for example.

##Differences in this fork Changed mapping for indentation level andabove/below to (a|i)l (little A or little I AND little L) from (a|i)I (big I) because the latter is awkward to type in my opinion

============================================================================== #TEXT OBJECTS

This plugin defines two new text objects. These are very similar - they differ only in whether they include the line below the block or not.

        Key Mapping       Description     ~
        <count>ai         (A)n (I)ndentation level and line above.
        <count>ii         (I)nner (I)ndentation level (no line above).
        <count>al         (A)n indentation level and lines above/be(l)ow.
        <count>il         (I)nner indentation level and lines above/be(l)ow.

Note that the il mapping is mostly included simply for completeness, it is effectively a synonym for ii.

Just like regular text objects, these mappings can be used either with operators expecting a motion, such as 'd' or 'c', as well as in visual mode. In visual mode the mapping can be repeated, which has the effect of iteratively increasing the scope of indentation block selected. Specifying a count can be used to achieve the same effect.

The difference between ai and al is that ai includes the line immediately above the indentation block, whereas al includes not only that, but also the line below. Which of these is most useful largely depends on the structure of the language being edited.

For example, when editing the Python code, ai is generally more useful, as the line above the indentation block is usually related to it. For example, in the following code (* is used to indicate the cursor position):

      if foo > 3:
         log("foo is big") *
         foo = 3
      do_something_else()

the if clause is logically related to the code block, whereas the function call below is not. It is unlikely we would want to select the line below when we are interested in the if block.

However, in other languages, such as Vim scripts, control structures are usually terminated with something like 'endif'. Therefore, in this example:

      if foo > 3
         echo "foo is big" *
         let foo = 3
      endif
      call do_something_else()

we would more likely want to include the endif when we select the if structure.

============================================================================== #BLANK LINES

When scanning code blocks, the plugin usually ignores blank lines. There is an exception to this, however, when the block being selected is not indented. In this case if blank lines are ignored, then the entire file would be selected. Instead when code at the top level is being indented blank lines are considered to delimit the block.

============================================================================== #ABOUT

vim-indent-object was written by Michael Smith msmith@msmith.id.au. The project repository is kept at:

http://github.com/michaeljsmith/vim-indent-object

minor mapping edits made by Scott Opell

my fork kept at

http://github.com/scottopell/vim-indent-object

Any feedback or criticism is welcome, and can be mailed to the author at the above email address. Alternatively issues can be raised on the project website.

Licence:

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.