siliconbrain's small vi survival guide

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why

sometimes unfortunatly and no one knows why, you have to work on something similar to a computer, but with no emacs. all the crying does not help: you have to use vi. to prevent you from going crazy and becomming lunatic, i provided this little vi survival guide.

modes

vi has three modes: command-mode, ex-mode and input-mode. the command-mode is the normal mode in which you should be normally. some commands (like 'i') switch into the input mode. the command : switches into ex-mode. if you submit the ex command with RETURN, you are back in command-mode. it's the best vi-secret, when the input-mode switches back to command-mode. but with ESC you can force command-mode. if you are not sure if you are in command- or input-mode (what is almost always the case), just press ESC.

so normally you work like this:

enter vi
do some commands.
do an input command, then input text, then ESC
:, then ex-command, then RETURN
with i, R, c, o, a you are put into input-mode.

commands

many commands have a general common behavior:

press it once, then the command waits for the definition for the target location. for example 'd' (delete data).
target same as command ('dd'): delete whole line
type command in capital: D delete rest of line
type a cursor move command as target.

examples:

'G' goes to last line: 'dG' deletes all up to the last line
'34G' goes to line number 34: 'd34G' deletes everything up to line 34
'`a' goes to mark named a: 'd`a' deletes everything until mark a.
'w' moves to next word: 'dw' deletes next word.
'n' moves to next search result: 'dn' deletes everything up to next find result.
'/copy' goto the next occurrence of copy: 'd/copy' delete everything up to the next word copy.

all these examples work for several commands:

c - change text
y - copy text
d - delete text

(for example: 'y1G': copy text from cursor to beginning of text).

you can preface these commands (as well as the 'p' command) with '"<a>' where <a> is one of the 26 chars of the alphabet or a number. if you do that the deleted or copied text is put into the named buffers. named buffers are kept, when you change the file via ':n' or ':e'. for example: '"adG' delete until the end of file and put text into buffer named a. '"ap': paste buffer a into text. if you use capital buffernames text is appended to the buffer.

if you want to delete from where the cursor is up to a place which you don't know, and you have to search it via scrolling and finding you can proceed as following:

at the beginning position of the area to be deleted enter 'ma' (set mark with name a)

with scrolling, or find or whatever goto the end position of the to be deleted area

enter 'd`a' (unfortunately the '`' (backquote) on my pc is entered via SHIFT-` SPACE)

the .exrc

in your home directory (which is the dir where you are placed by just entering 'cd' without any target-dir), you can have a file named '.exrc'. this file is executed when the vi is started. it can contain ex-commands. i recommend the following contents:

set number
            set showmode
            set noautoindent

number shows the line numbers. showmode sometimes shows when you are in input mode. and noautoindent protects you from endless armadas of tab-chars. ('set number' is surely the most important).

the command list

i made a list of useful commands. the idea is to learn the commands in the sequence of the list.

`:w`	write file
`ZZ`	write and exit file
`:q!`	exit vi without save
`:q`	exit file

`i`	insert text
`a`	insert text after actual char
`A`	insert text at end of line
`r`	replace one char
`R`	replace many chars (use ESC to end)
`x`	delete char
`dd`	delete line

`/hugo`	search for the string 'hugo'
`?hugo`	search for the string 'hugo' backward
`n`	repeat last search
`N`	repeat last search in the oposit direction
`1,$s/hugo/victor/g`	change all occurences of 'hugo' to 'victor'

`D`	delete rest of line
`o`	append new line after actual line
`O`	append new line before actual line
`yy`	copy line to buffer
`23yy`	copy 23 lines to buffer
`p`	put lines from buffer after actual line

`y234G`	copy all line from actual until linenumber 234
`"add`	delete line and put to buffer a
`"Add`	delete line and append to buffer a
`"ap`	put text from buffer a
`"by4w`	copy next 4 words into buffer b

`0`	beginning of line
`+`	beginning of next line
`-`	beginning of previous line
`w`	next word
`b`	previous word
`z+ z. z-`	actual line on top, middle or bottom of screen

`c`	change text
`cc`	change current line
`C`	change until end of line

`ma`	define mark with name a
`'a`	goto line with mark a
`a	go exactly to mark a
`d'a`	delete from actual line until line with mark a

`%`	goto corresponding (, [ or {
`''`	go back to old actual line
`.`	repeat last change command
`abbrev re return`	when typing re it's replaced by return

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contact SiliconBrain

info@siliconbrain.com

this web page was designed by joerg kunze.

this web page is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the license or (at your opinion) any later version.

this web page is distributed in the hope that it is useful, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. see the GNU General Public License for details.

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