---
title: "Automatically Generate a list of Markdown Links in Vim"
description: "Let's make a vim command to automatically collect all the links in these posts at the end of each article. Regex confuses the heck out of me... I don't have..."
date: 2022-03-19
published: false
tags:
  - vim
  - webdev
  - meta
template: til
---


Let's make a vim command to automatically collect all the links in these
posts at the end of each article.  Regex confuses the heck out of me...
I don't have my regex liscense, but
regex can be so darn powerful especially in an editor.

## Step one

Before you run someone's regex from the internet that you don't fully
understand, check your `git status` and make sure you are all clear with
git before you wreck something

## Inspiration

Something that I have always appreciated form
[Nick Janetakis](https://nickjanetakis.com/) is his links section.  I
often try to gather up the links at the end of my posts, but often end
up not doing it or forgetting.

## Making a Links section

Searchng through the internet I was able to find an article from
Vitaly Parnas called
[vim ref links](https://vitalyparnas.com/guides/vim-ref-links/) that did
almost exactly what I needed, except it was more complicated and made
them into ref liks.

Here is my interpretation of the code I took from Vitaly's post.  It
makes a Links section like the one at the bottom of this post.

``` vim
function! MdLinks()
    $norm o## Links
    $norm o
    g/\[[^\]]\+\]([^)]\+)/t$
    silent! '^,$s/\v[^\[]*(\[[^\]]+\])\(([^)]+)\)[^\[]*/* \1(\2)/g
    nohl
endfunction
command! MdLinks call MdLinks()
```

So far it is working for me and saving me a few seconds off each post I
make.

## Links

* [Nick Janetakis](https://nickjanetakis.com/)
* [vim ref links](https://vitalyparnas.com/guides/vim-ref-links/)