Have Ctrl-a increase a number just like in vim

Question

In spacemacs Ctrl-a is being used to move to the beginning of the line. I'm more used to 0 to move to the beginning of the line and $ to the end, which works in spacemacs. Ctrl-a increases numbers in vim and I'd like to use that key in spacemacs too. How can I do so? I tried to unbind the keys with the following in my .spacemacs:

(define-key org-mode-map (kbd "C-a") nil)
(define-key global-map (kbd "C-a") nil)

Now the key doesn't move to the beginning of the line, but it also doesn't increment numbers, it does nothing. When I use it, it simply shows "C-a is undefined".

score 12 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 08 '18 at 13:20

12

The package evil-numbers does exactly what you need.

answered Jun 08 '18 at 13:20

Panagiotis Koutsourakis

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Why isn't this part of evil-mode? – ideasman42 Jan 14 '19 at 01:56
1

No idea, but it doesn't help that both `C-a` and `C-x` are bound by default in Emacs. – wasamasa Jan 14 '19 at 07:14

Alvin · Answer 2 · 2019-01-14T00:34:16.090

10

I've stumbled upon the same issue of preference and as suggested before, evil-numbers is the package for that. But while trying to set it up, it was surprising that evil-numbers is already in spacemacs, just missing the keybinds.

To activate, just add

(define-key evil-normal-state-map (kbd "C-a") 'evil-numbers/inc-at-pt)
(define-key evil-visual-state-map (kbd "C-a") 'evil-numbers/inc-at-pt)
(define-key evil-normal-state-map (kbd "C-x") 'evil-numbers/dec-at-pt)
(define-key evil-visual-state-map (kbd "C-x") 'evil-numbers/dec-at-pt)

to your user-init and it will work with Ctrl+a and Ctrl+x combinations. (taken from the package's *.el file in git)

I don't get any conflicts with previous keybinds, i guess emacs redefines them, not overlays. (?)

edited Jan 14 '19 at 00:34

answered Jan 13 '19 at 22:50

Alvin

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Can you edit your question to have appropriate keybindings rather than telling to change them? – Jan 13 '19 at 23:43
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Ofcourse i can :) – Alvin Jan 14 '19 at 00:36

legoscia · Answer 3 · 2021-04-06T17:39:42.730

Emacs doesn't have a built-in function to increment numbers, so let's grab this one from EmacsWiki:

(defun increment-number-at-point ()
  (interactive)
  (skip-chars-backward "0-9")
  (or (looking-at "[0-9]+")
      (error "No number at point"))
  (replace-match (number-to-string (1+ (string-to-number (match-string 0))))))

Now we can bind C-a to that function:

(global-set-key (kbd "C-a") 'increment-number-at-point)

Here's a version of that function that keeps point at the same place instead of moving to the end of the number:

(defun increment-number-at-point ()
  (interactive)
  (let ((old-point (point)))
    (unwind-protect
        (progn
          (skip-chars-backward "0-9")
          (or (looking-at "[0-9]+")
              (error "No number at point"))
          (replace-match (number-to-string (1+ (string-to-number (match-string 0))))))
      (goto-char old-point))))

After the increment the cursor moves to the end of the number. How can we avoid this behavior? — SergioAraujo, Apr 06 '21 at 17:28
I edited the answer and added another version of that function that seems to keep the cursor in place. — legoscia, Apr 06 '21 at 17:40

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 06 '19 at 19:56

There are different bindings for this functionality in spacemacs.
You can increment with Space n + or Space n = and decrement with Space n -.

For more information take a look at the official documentation: https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/blob/master/doc/DOCUMENTATION.org#increasedecrease-numbers Or this issue on GitHub: https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/issues/9895

(On the develop branch these currently open a transient state in which you can further increment or decrement the values.)

Have Ctrl-a increase a number just like in vim

4 Answers4