Vim Kung-Fu

[Tom H]

On Sun, Oct 17, 2010 at 3:37 AM, Christopher Lemire
<christopher.lemire at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 17, 2010 at 12:26 AM, Tom H <tomh0665 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sun, Oct 17, 2010 at 1:02 AM, Christopher Lemire
>> <christopher.lemire at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> My contacts list in google (used for most google web apps, google
>>> voice, gmail, etc.) is very messy. I could edit it through google on
>>> the web, but that is tedious. I exported the contacts list in all 3
>>> available formats. None are very readable or understandable. I'd like
>>> to edit with vim (mostly in command mode) one of these files, and then
>>> import it back into Google. I googled "edit cvs OR vcf with vim" and I
>>> came up with unrelated search results, mostly CVS as in Control
>>> Version System. Any thoughts? How can this be done?
>>
>> It's not cvs but csv as in comma-separated values.
>>
>> It might be easier to edit one of the csv files in OO, or at least
>> prep it in OO because you probably have many unused fields/columns and
>> then edit it with vi.
>
> I'm not sure what you are getting at? How does one edit something in
> OpenOffice using vim. If the format of these files was a little more
> clear, readable, then I would go ahead and use vim/gvim to edit them.
> Perhaps there is some type of conversion for these files. I can
> convert them to a better formatting for editing, and then when I am
> done, convert it back and import the file back to google.

The fields are comma-separated but there are many of them, which makes
them difficult to read in vi. So I suggested that you use OO to delete
the unused columns and then edit it in vi.