VI commands
INSERTING TEXT
To leave the Insert mode, press 'Esc'
| a | Append after cursor |
| A | Append after end of current line |
| i | Insert before cursor |
| I | Insert before beginning of current line |
| o | Open new line below current line and insert |
| O | Open new line above current line and insert |
| CTRL-vchar | While inserting, ignore special meaning of char (e.g., for inserting characters like Esc and control characters) |
| :r file | Read file, and insert after current line |
| J | Join next line to end of current line |
DELETING TEXT
| CTRL-h or Backspace | While in Input Mode delete previous character |
Typing a number before these commands will delete that amount of characters, words, or lines.
| x | Deletes current character |
| dw | Delete current word |
| dd | Deletes current line |
| :n,md | Deletes lines n through m |
| D or d$ | Delete from cursor to end of current line |
| dcursor_cmd | Delete text to cursor to cursor_cmd(e.g.,dG deletes from current line to end of file) |
UNDOING AND REPEATING COMMANDS
| u | Undo last command |
| U | Restore current line to original state |
| "np | Retrieve last nth delete(last 9 deletes are in a buffer)" |
| n | Repeat last / or ? search command |
| N | Repeat, in reverse direction, last / or ? search command |
| ; (semi-colon) | Repeat last f, F, t or T search command |
| , (comma) | Repeat, in reverse direction, last f, F, t or T search command |
| . (period) | Repeat last text change command |
MOVING THE CURSOR
k or CTRL-p Up
j or CTRL-j or
CTRL-n Down
h or CTRL-h
or Backspace Left
l (lower case L)
or Spacebar Right
w or W Start of next word; W ignores punctuation
b or B Start of previous word; B ignores punctuation
e or E End of next word; E ignores punctuation
0 (zero)
or | (pipe) First column in current line
n| Column n in current line
^ (caret) First non-blank character in current line
$ Last character in current line
+ or Return First character in next line
- First non-blank character in previous line
1G First line in file
G Last line in file
G$ Last character in file
nG Line n in file
( Back to beginning of sentence
) Forward to beginning of next sentence
\{ Back to beginning of paragraph
\} Forward to beginning of next paragraph
PATTERN MATCHING
Pattern matching characters help find strings with similar char-
acteristics.
:set magic Allow pattern matching with special characters
(default)
:set nomagic Allow only ^ and $ as special characters
^ (caret) Match beginning of line
$ Match end of line
. (period) Match any single character
\< Match beginning of word
\> Match end of word
[str] Match any single character in str
[^str] Match any character not in str
[a-n] Match any character between a and n
- Match zero or more occurrences of previous character
in expression
\ Escape meaning of next character(e.g. \$ lets you
search for $)
\\ Escape the \ character
SAVE TEXT AND EXIT VI
ZZ or :wq or
:x Save file and exit vi
:w file Save file but do not exit. Omitting file saves current
file
:w! file Save file overriding normal checking
:n,mw file Write lines n through m to file
:n,mw>>file Append lines n through m to end of file
:q Leave vi, saving changes before last write
(you may be prompted to save first)
:q! Leave vi without saving any changes since last write
Q Escape vi into ex editor with same file; :vi returns
:e! File-edit current file, disregarding changes since last
write.
SEARCHING
| f<char> | Search forward in current line to <char> |
| F<char> | Search backwards in curretn line to <char> |
| /<string> | Find next occurence of <string> |
| ?<string> | Find previous occurence of <string> |
| :set ic | Ingnore case while searching |
| :set noic | Case sensitive while searching (default) |
GLOBAL SEARCH AND REPLACE
| :n,m s/<str1>/<str2>/<opt> | Search from n to m for <str1> and replace it with <str2> with option <opt>. <opt> can be c - confirm changes g - global replace p - to print changed lines |
| (Ex- :1,$ s/foo/bar/g | Replaces every occurence of "foo" with the string "bar".) |
| :g/<str>/<cmd> | Run <cmd> on all lines that contain <str> |
| :g/<str1>/s/<str2>/<str3>/ | Find line containing <str1>, replace <str2> with <str3> |
| :v/<str>/<cmd> | Execute <cmd> on all lines that do not match <str> |
COPYING AND PLACING TEXT
( These commands may be preceded by a number to multiply commands )
| yy or Y | Yank current line into the buffer ( copy ) |
| nyy or nY | Yank n amount of line into buffer |
| p | Insert line(s) in buffer after cursor; also prints last deleted text |
| P | Insert line(s) in buffer before cursor |
USEFUL OPTIONS
| :set all | Displays all options you may "set" |
| :set showmode | Displays "INPUT MODE" while in input mode |
| :set tabstop=n | Sets the tabwidth of the tab key to n spaces; 8 is default, but 4 may be preferable |
| :set list | Displays all control characters in document; |
