Controlling The Screen Display of Your Session Moving the Cursor Paging Through Text Special Pattern Characters Searching Through Text Creating Text Modifying Text Making Corrections During Text Insertions Ending Editing Sessions Adding Comments Using ex Commands From Within vi
| Controlling The Screen Display of Your Session | |
|---|---|
| Repaint the current screen | {ctrl-l} |
| Display line #, # of lines, etc.. | {ctrl-g} |
Moving the Cursor |
|
| Beginning of current line | 0 or ^ |
| Beginning of first screen line | H |
| Beginning of last screen line | L |
| Beginning of middle screen line | M |
| Down one line | j, {return}, + |
| End of current line | $ |
| Left one character | h, {ctrl-h} |
| Left to beggining of word | b, B |
| Right one character | l, {space} |
| Right to end of word | e, E |
| Right to beginning of word | w, W |
| Up one line | k, - |
| Beginning of next sentence | ) |
| Beginning of previous sentence | ( |
Paging Through Text |
|
| Back one screen | {ctrl-b} |
| Down half a screen | {ctrl-d} |
| Down one screen | {ctrl-f} |
| Forware to end of file | G |
| Move cursor to specified line line no. | G |
| Up half a screen | {ctrl-j} |
Special Pattern Characters |
|
| Beginning of line | ^ |
| End of line | $ |
| Any character except newline | . |
| Any number of the preceding character | * |
| Any set of characters (except newline) | .* |
Searching Through Text |
|
| Beginning of line | ^ |
| Backward for pattern | ?pattern |
| Forward for pattern | /pattern |
| Repeat previous search | n |
| Reverse direction of previous search | N |
| Show *all* lines containing pattern | :beg,endg/pattern/p |
| :1,$g/compiler/p Will print all lines with the pattern compiler. | |
| Substitute patt2 for all patt1 found. | :beg,ends/patt1/patt2/g |
| :%s/notfound/found/g Will change all occurences of notfound to found. | |
Creating Text |
|
| Append text after cursor | a |
| Append text after end of line | A |
| Insert text before cursor | i |
| Insert text at beginning of line | I |
| Open new line after current line | o |
| Open new line before current line | O |
| Take next character literally (i.e. control characters...) and display it | {ctrl-v} |
Modifying Text |
|
| Change current word | cw, cW |
| Change current line (cursor to end) | C |
| Delete character (cursor forward) | x |
| Delete character (before cursor) | X |
| Delete word | dw, dW |
| Delete line | dd |
| Delete text to end of line | D |
| Duplicate text | (use yank and put) |
| Join current line with next line | J |
| Move text | (use delete and put) |
| Put buffer text after/below cursor | p |
| Put buffer text before/above cursor | P |
| Repeat last modification command | . |
| Replace current character | r |
| Replace text to end of line | R |
| Substitute text for character | s |
| Undo your previous command | u |
| Transpose characters | xp |
| Yank (copy) word into buffer | yw |
| Yank (copy) current line into buffer | Y |
Making Corrections During Text Insertions |
|
| Change current word | cw, cW |
| Overwrite last character | {delete} |
| Overwrite last word | {ctrl-w} |
Ending Your Editing Sessions |
|
| Quit (no changes made) | :q |
| Quit and save changes | ZZ, :wq |
| Quit and discard changes | :q! |
Using ex Commands From Within vi |
|
| Copy specified lines | :co, t |
| Display line numbers | :set nu |
| Disable display of line numbers | :set nonu |
| Move lines after specified line | :m |
| Read file in after specified line | :r filename |
| Review current editor options | :set |
| Review editor options | :set all |
| Set new editor option | :set option |
| Write changes to original file | :w |
| Write to specified file | :w filename |
| Force write to a file | :w! filename |
| Adding Comments | |
| Put a # sign to start the comment | # |