Clearing A Register

There are two ways that you can clear a text register in Vim:

• You can use :let @x = "" to set the content of "x to the empty string
• You can type qxq in normal mode

The first one is fairly self-explanatory — we use the :let command to explicitly clear out the content of the register.

But what about the second one? Why does qxq in normal mode clear the x register? Let’s walk through it.

• qx starts recording a new macro into the "x register
• q immediately stops recording

So, altogether, qxq records nothing into the "x register. This has the effect of clearing it out.

Give it a try in the editor. Yank the first line into the "x register with "xyy, then inspect the content of the register with :reg x. You should see that the line is in there. Then, try typing qxq and again inspect the register with :reg x. You should see that it’s now empty.