Misc: vi cheat sheet ¶

Title:: Misc: vi cheat sheet
Author:: Douglas O’Leary <dkoleary@olearycomputers.com>
Description:: Misc: vi cheat sheet
Date created:: 02/1997
Date updated:: 03/1999
Disclaimer:: Standard: Use the information that follows at your own risk. If you screw up a system, don’t blame it on me…

Edit commands ¶

Text Object	Change	Delete	Copy
1 word	cw	dw	yw
2 words not counting punctuation	2cW or c2W	2dW or d2W	2yW or y2W
3 words back	3cb or c3b	3db or d3b	3yb or y3b
1 line	cc	dd	yy or Y
To end of line	c$ or C	d$ or D	y$
To beginning of line	c0	d0	y0
Single character	r	x or X	y1 or yh
5 characters	5s	5x	5y1

Insert text at current position	i
Insert text at beginnging of line	I
Append text at current position	a
Append text at beginning of line	A
Open new line below cursor for new text	o
Open new line above cursor for new text	O
Delete line and substitute text	S
Overstrike existing characters with new text	R
Join current and next line	J
Toggle case	~
Repeat last action	.
Undo last change	u
Restore line to original state	U

Movement commands ¶

Movement	Commands
left, down, up, right	h, j, k, l
Forward by word	w or W
Backward by word	b or B
To end of line	$
To beginning of line	0 or ^
Scroll forward one screen	^F
Scroll backward one screen	^B
Scroll forward half a screen	^D
Scroll backward half a screen	^U
Scroll forward one line	^E
Scroll backward one line	^Y
Move current line to the top of the screen and scroll	z < RETURN>
Move current line to the center of the screen and scroll
Move current line to the bottom of the screen and scroll.	z-
Redraw the scren	^L
Move to the top of the screen	H
Move to the middle of the screen	M
Move to the bottom of the screen	L
Move to the first character of the next line	or <RETURN>
Move to the first non-blank character of current line.	^
Move to column n of current line	n\|
Move to the end of a word	e
Move to the end of a word, ignoring punctuation.	E
Move to the beginning of the current sentence	(
Move to the beginning of the next sentence.	)
Move to the beginning of the current paragraph	{
Move to the beginning of the next paragraph	}
Move to the beginning of the current section	[[
Move to the beginning of the next section	]]
Search forward for a pattern	/pattern
Search backward for a pattern	?pattern
Repeat last search	n
Repeat last search in opposite direction	N
Repeat last search forward	/
Repeat last search backward.	n
Move to next occurrence of x in current line.	fx
Move to previous occurrence of x in current line.	Fx
Move to just before next occurrence of x in current line.	tx
Move to just before previous occurrence of x in current line.	Tx
Repeat previous find command in same direction	;
Repeat previous find command in opposite direction	,
Go to n line	nG
Go to the end of the file	G
Show current line	^G

Buffer and marking commands ¶

Command	Meaning
“bcommand	Do commnad with buffer b
mx	Mark current position with x
‘x	Move cursor to the first character of line marked with x
`x	Move cursor to character marked by x
``	Return to previous mark
‘’	Return to beginning of line containing previous mark

ex editor examples ¶

Ex command:	Description
:3,18d	Delete lines 3 - 18
160,224m23	Move lines 160-224 to the line following 23.
23,29co100	Copy lines 23-29 and place them after line 100.
%d	Delete all lines in the file
:100;+5p	Sets the current line to 100 then prints the next five lines. The semicolon is the important syntax. This gets around the error that states First address exceeds second.
340,$w >>new_file	Appends lines 340 - EOF to new_file
:$r	in_file Reads in_file and places contents at the end of the current file.
:0r	in_file Reads in_file and places contents at the top of the current file.
:e# or <ctrl>-^	Switches to the previously edited file.
“f4yy	Yanks four lines into buffer f
“fp	Puts the contents of buffer f after the current line.
:200,210ya j	Yanks lines 200 - 210 into buffer j
:$pu j	Puts the contents of buffer j at the end of the file.
:%s/old/new/g	Global search of the file, replacing old w/new
:g/pattern/s/old/new/g	Searches the file for pattern; once found, changes old to new on matching lines only. A context-sensitive search/replace, if you will.
:g/^$/d	Deletes any blank lines in the file
:%s/biteme/& harder/	Searches globally for biteme and replaces it with biteme harder. The & is shorthand for the entire original search.

UNIX cmds, macros, abbrevs & key mappings ¶

Command	Meaning
:r !date	Results in Mon Jan 6 14:12:20 CST 2003 being put in the line following the current.
:r !sort phone	Reads in the sorted file phone and places it below the current line.
:%sort -r	Reverse sorts the contents of the file
:%!<tr> ‘[A-Z]’ ‘[a-z]’	Converts all capitalized letters to lowercase.
:ab bm biteme harder	Creates an abbreviation such that any time you type bm as a single word, vi will automatically replace it with biteme harder. Must be in insert mode for this to work.
:unab bm	Removes the abbreviation for bm
:map ^R o</<tr>>^M<tr>^M^I<td>	Maps -R to the keysequence that opens a line below the current and adds terminating row, new row, and table data html tags. The ^M and ^I key sequences must be added using <CTRL>-V <return> and <ctrl>-V <TAB> characters.
:unmap ^R	Removes the key mapping.