vi Reference
August 7, 2007 – 8:11 pmTip courtesy of Kyle Reynolds at http://www.camelrichard.org
vi reference
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Editing commands
Moving around the file
h cursor left j cursor right
k cursor up l cursor down
^ & B Beginning of line
$ end of line
) Next sentance
( Previous sentance
} Next Paragraph
{ Previous Paragraph
:$ end of file
w one character forward
W one word forward
:20 go to Line no 20 or whatever number you give
displaying file info .
^g give name of the file current line and total lines of a file at the bottom .
Inserting and appending text :
i inserts text to the left of cursor
I inserts in the beginning of line
a appends text to right of cursor
A appends to the end of line
Adding new line
o add a new line below the current line
O adds a new line above the current line.
deleting the text :
x deletes text above the text
X deletes text character on right of cursor
20d deletes line 20
dd deletes current line
D delete till end of current line.
Replacing a character & word
r replace the character above the cursor.
R replces characters until Esc is pressed.
cw replaces the word from cursor to the end indicated by $ sign .
C replaces till end of line.
Substitute
s subistutes current charcater.
S substitutes entire line.
Repeating last command
. repeats the last text.
Undo the last change
u undo last change.
U undo changes to the current line.
Copy and pasting lines
yy copys the current line into buffer.
5yy copies 5 lines from the current line.
p pastes the current buffer.
Recovering a unsaved vi file.
vi -r filename restores a unsaved / crashed file from buffer.
Searching
:/name & return searches for the word name in the file
n continues search forward.
N searches backwards.
Substitution
:1,$s/<search-string>/<replace-string>/g
Saving
:w saves the text does not quit.
:wq saves & quit the editor .
ZZ save
:q! Quit without saving