- The correct title of this article is vi. The initial letter is capitalized due to technical restrictions.
vi is a screen-oriented text editor computer program run from the command line.
Configuring vi/vim
It is possible to extensively configure vi (or vim) to suit your personal needs.
For an example, if you would like syntax-highlighting to be used by default for most of your code files, edit your .vimrc file (located in your "home" directory. If one does not exist, create it) and add the following line:
syn on
Commands
Below is a very short list of the most useful commands:
| Command mode |
| ESC | |
| Movement command |
| h, j, k, l | left, down, up, right |
| w, W, b, B | forward, backward by word |
| H | top of the screen |
| M | middle of the screen |
| L | last line of the screen |
| Ctrl-F | forward one screen |
| Ctrl-B | backward one screen |
| Ctrl-D | forward half screen |
| Ctrl-U | backward half screen |
| 0 (zero), $ | start, end of current line |
| Inserting text |
| a | append after cursor |
| i | insert before cursor |
| A | append to end of line |
| I | insert at start of line |
| o | open a line below current line |
| O | open a line above current line |
| r | replace char |
| Delete text |
| x | current character |
| dh | previous character |
| dw | current word |
| db | previous word |
| dd | entire line |
| d$ | to end of line |
| d0 (zero) | to start of line |
| ndd | next n lines |
| Undelete |
| p | insert after cursor |
| P | insert before cursor |
|
| Goto line |
| :linenumber | |
| nG | Goto line n |
| :7 | Goto line 7 |
| Save and exit |
| ZZ | write if changes and quit |
| :wq | write and quit |
| :w filename | save to new file |
| :q! | quit vi |
| Search |
| /pattern <RETURN> | forward for a pattern |
| ?pattern <RETURN> | backward for a pattern |
| n | repeat previous search |
| N | repeat previous search in reverse direction |
| Search and replace |
| Example: | |
- Search from current line and replace first occurance
:s/search_string/replace_string/
- Search from current line and replace all matches
:s/search_string/replace_string/g
- Search from every line, replace confirmation (with [y]es)
:%s/search_string/replace_string/gc
:1,$s/search_string/replace_string/gc
- Search lines from 10 to 20
:10,20s/search_string/replace_string/g
|
| Undo |
| u | the latest change |
| U | all changes on a line |
| Concatenate |
| J | concatenate two lines |
|
