How to wrap some text in vim with '', "", (), [], {}, etc?

Question

I'm new to vim. And I'm pressing too many buttons doing basic text wrapping:

1. string -> "string"
2. long string with many words -> 'long string with many words'
3. a + b * c -> (a + b) * c
4. (elem0, elem1, elem2) -> [elem0, elem1, elem2] (optional)

I'm doing all that manually: go to begin, Insert mode, press key, Normal mode, (the same for second character).

How to do it faster? E.g.: visually select the text, smart-wrap it with what you need. Or even without visual selection.

Answer 1

1. string -> "string"

   ciw"<C-r>""
   

2. long string with many words -> 'long string with many words'

   veeeeec'<C-r>"'
   

3. a + b * c -> (a + b) * c

   vwwc(<C-r>")
   

4. (elem0, elem1, elem2) -> [elem0, elem1, elem2] (optional)

   "edibxs[<C-r>e]
   

   That one is a bit more complicated:

   "edib        cut the content of those parentheses into
                an arbitrary register, here I used "e
   
   xs           cut the closing parenthese then cut the opening one
                and enter insert mode
   
   [<C-r>e]     insert the opening bracket, followed by the content of
                register e, followed by the closing bracket
   

But yeah, use Tim Pope's Surround.

Answer 2

You can use visuall mode for this. For example you have string. ^ will be cursor positioning. Start in normal mode

1. string # press viwc(your word will be selected and deleted to unnamed register)
   ^
2. # press " and then <C-r>"(this will paste your selected text) and then press again "

This method can be with any surrounding parenthesis or brackets and with any number of words. you just need to change your selection in visual mode