My Vim/vi Notes

This blog covers basics of Vim/vi that are useful in day to day activities of a weblogic/fmw admin.

Navigation Commands:

h – Move cursor left
j – Move cursor down
k – Move cursor up
l – Move cursor right
0 – Move to first character of real line
gj/gk – Move down or up by display lines instead of real lines
g0 – To first character of display line (when line spreads multiple lines, useful in navigating log files)
gg – Go to beginning of the file
G – Go to last line of the file
8G/8gg – Go to 8th line
w – Move to start of the word
e – Move to end of the word
b – Move backward to start of the word

Movement by finding character:

f{char} – Move to the next occurrence of {char}

F{char} – Move backward to the previous occurrence of {char}

t{char} – Move to the character before the next occurrence of {char}

T{char} – Move backward to the character after the previous occurrence of {char}

*  – Search for the word under the cursor at that moment 

# – Same as above but in backward direction. 

; – Repeat the last character-search command

,  – Reverse the last character-search command

Screen Movements:

ctrl + f – Move forward by one screen

ctrl + b – Move backward by one screen

Search and Replace:

          

/pattern –  Go to pattern in forward direction

?pattern – Go to pattern in backward direction

n             – Repeat last search, looking in direction of initial search

N            – Repeat last search, looking in reverse direction

:s/old/new – Replaces first occurrence of old string with new string in the current line

:s/old/new/g – Replaces all occurrences of old with new in the current line

:%s/old/new/g – Replaces all occurrences of old with new in whole file

:%s/old/new/gc – Replaces all occurrences of old with new in whole file with confirmation

Display Commands:

:set list – Show invisible characters

:set nolist – Don’t show invisible characters

:set number – Show line numbers

:set nonumber – Don’t show line numbers

Command History:

: + up arrow – To scroll through command history

/ + up arrow – To scroll through search history

:string + up arrow – To scroll through command history that starts with string

/string + up arrow – To scroll through search history that starts with string

Save/Exit:

:w    – Save your file but not quit vi

:wq  – Save and quit edit session

:q     – To quit if no changes are made

:q!    – To quit ignoring unsaved edits

Yank & Paste:

yy  – Copy current line to general buffer

10Y – Yank 20 lines

yG  – Yank till end of file

yw  – Yank current word

p   – Put general buffer after cursor

P   – Put general buffer before cursor

Insert Mode Commands:

Ctrl-h  – Delete back one character

Ctrl-w – Delete back one word

Ctrl-u  – Delete back to start of line 

Ctrl-c – Go back to normal mode

Undo:

u – undo

U – Undo all changes on the line

Ctrl + r – redo

Vim Modes:

r – replaces single character in command mode

R – Replace mode

v – Character-wise Visual mode

V – Line-wise Visual mode

ctr + v – Block-wise Visual mode

Changing Case:

~     – changes the case of the letter

g~w – swtiches the case of whole word

gUw – upper case whole word

gUU – changes case of whole line

guw – changes case of whole word to lowercase

guu – changes case of whole line to lower case

Input commands:

a – Append after cursor

A – Appends at the end of the current line

i – Insert before cursor

I – insert mode by moving cursor to the first non blanck character of the line

o – Go to next line in insert mode

O – Go to line above current line in insert mode

>G – Increases the indentation from the current line until the end of the file

Change commands:

cw – Change word

cc – Change line 

c$ – Change to end of line

. – Repeat last change

ci” – To change inside a quote. This can be used for all other paterns like },]

Deletion:

x – Deletes current character

dd – Deletes current line

5dd – Deletes 5 lines from current line

dk – Deletes current line and line above. Similarly dj

d0 – Deletes to beginning of the line

d$/D – Deletes to the end of the line

dw – Deletes word

db – Deletes previous word

das – Deletes entire sentence

dap – Deletes entire paragraph

daw – Deletes the word irrespective of its position

di” – Deletes inside a quote

da” – Deletes inside a quote including quote

 

 Command Mode:

:!command – Execute shell command from vi editor

:! sh % – Execute currently editing file

:shell – Open shell without closing edit session and come back

:read !{cmd}  – Executes {cmd} in the shell and insert its standard output below the cursor

 

Misc:

J – Joins two lines

:lineNum1,lineNum2s/^/# – To comment lines from lineNum1 to lineNum2

80i* + esc – To repeat * 80 times

5o# + esc – To write 5 lines that starts with #

c$ or C – deletes till end of the line and goes to insert mode

References:

https://missing.csail.mit.edu/2020/editors/

https://vim-adventures.com/

https://pragprog.com/titles/dnvim2/