vim date
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When I want to put a date in a document like a blog post from vim I use !!date from insert mode. Note that entering from normal mode puts you in command mode...

Date: February 12, 2025

When I want to put a date in a document like a blog post from vim I use !!date from insert mode. Note that entering !! from normal mode puts you in command mode with :.! filled out. This runs a shell command, i.e. date for this example.

It outputs the following

Fri Jan 31 08:46:11 PM CST 2025

You can also pass in a date such as tommorrow by pasdding in the -d date -d tomorrow.

It outputs the following

Sat Feb 1 08:53:20 PM CST 2025

│ codeium just taught me this one with autocomplete

[code]
  :put =strftime('%Y-%m-%d')

This outputs the following

2025-01-31

What I like about the :put =strftime( method is that you can add a format, but that is a lot more for me to remember than !!date

A few weeks later
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I’m going through a bunch of blog posts and dont want my date formats to change to the Wed Feb format so I broke down and made these keybindings. I think I’m still going to be using .!date a lot, but these keybindings will be nice for editing blog post frontmatter.

[code]
  set("n", "<leader>dd", "<cmd>put =strftime('%Y-%m-%d')<cr>", { noremap = true, silent = true })
  set("n", "<leader>dt", "<cmd>put =strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')<cr>", { noremap = true, silent = true })

- dd 2025-02-12
- dt 2025-02-12 12:53:47
- :.!date Wed Feb 12 12:53:47 PM CST 2025