How to move all the texts with a given pattern to the top of the file in Vim?

Question

I know

g/PATTERN/m $

will move all the texts with matching PATTERN to the end of the file. How do I accomplish the opposite? (i.e. to the top of the file)?

Answer 1

Change $ to 0

:g/PATTERN/m0

If you want it in the same order as they are in the file run the command twice.

Or all at once. execute is needed since g can not be chained with bar. The second g command will use the same pattern as the first.

:exec 'g/PATTERN/m0' | g//m0

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the command after the global command is :move which moves the current line to whatever address is supplied to move. 0 represents the first line in the file and $ represents the last.