vi, vim, vimdiff, meld - alex-aleyan/linux_wiki GitHub Wiki

Meld Install:

  • https://gnome.pages.gitlab.gnome.org/meld/
  • CentOS7: comes from EPEL repo.
  • CentOS8: yum install https://archives.fedoraproject.org/pub/archive/fedora/linux/releases/28/Everything/x86_64/os/Packages/m/meld-3.18.0-2.fc28.noarch.rpm

Useful VIM Commands (^ means while holding CTRL key):

  1. Move the cursor:

    vi file.txt +/foo  to move the cursor to the first instance of the foo string in file
h, j, k, l         left, down, up, right 
w, e, b            forward 1 word, forward to the next end of word, back 1 word
H, M, L            Move to Highest, Middle, Lowest line on the screen
), }               Move forward one sentence, move forward one paragraph
u, ^R              undo, redo
G                  Go to the last line
o, O               Start new line below, start new line above
~                  Toggle the case of the character under the cursor
5G 3G $G           Go to line 5, 3, last line
2| 11|             Go to column 2, 11 in the current line
0, $               moves the cursor to the beginning/end of the line

  2. Screen Manipulations:

    ^f	move forward one screen
^b	move backward one screen
^d	move down (forward) one half screen
^u	move up (back) one half screen
^l	redraws the screen
^r	redraws the screen, removing deleted lines

  3. Repeat last command:

    .             repeat last command
*             highlight all instances of a word under cursor

  4. Display Control:

    Q             puts you into line editor mode.

  5. Insert, Delete, Yank, Cut:

    i, a, I, A    insert text from the cursor, after the cursor, at the beginning of the line, end of the line
r, R          overwrite letter, start overwriting the line starting from the cursor position
x, X, D       delete character under cursor, delete character after cursor, delete everything after the cursor
Ndl Ndw Ndd   delete N letters, N words, N lines
Nyl Nyw Nyy   yank N letters, N words, N lines
Ncl Ncw Ncc   cut/change N letters, N words, N lines
p P           paste below the line or after the cursor, paste above the line or before the cursor

  6. Buffer Copy/Cut/Paste (a thru b are user buffers, 1 thru 9 are system buffers):

    "a3cl "b5cw   use "LETTER in front of cut or yank to put it into a particular buffer
"ap "bp       use "LETTER in front of the paste command to paste from a particular buffer.
"1yy "2yy     where the content of buffer 1 shifted to buffer 2 (every time you copy) and so on...

  7. Search:

    /fooname      search forward
?fooname      search backwards
n             next occurrence
N             previous occurrence

  8. Column Commands:

    :.=, =	              returns line number of current line, the total number of lines
:r readfromfile.txt   to copy content of a file into the currently opened file
:r !command           to read the output of a command
:w writetofile.txt    to save the content of the file to a new file
:1,10 w afile.txt     to save the content of line 1 thru 10 to a file
:1,10 w >> afile.txt  to append the content of line 1 thru 10 to a file

:s/oldfoo/newfoo/     replace FIRST OCCURRENCE of the oldfoo with newfoo on the CURRENT LINE
:s/oldfoo/newfoo/g    replace ALL OCCURRENCE of the oldfoo with newfoo on the CURRENT LINE
:%s/oldfoo/newfoo/g   replaces all occurrences of oldfoo with the newfoo in the entire file
:%s/oldfoo//g         delete all occurrences of oldfoo with the newfoo in the entire file
:%s/oldfoo//gc        delete all occurrences of oldfoo with the newfoo in the entire file with query
:set all
:set nu               set numbered lines
:set nonu             unset numbered lines

:set ic                         ignore case when searching
:set noic                       no ignore case when searching
:set hlsearch, nohlsearch, noh  highlight search, no highlight search, no highlight

:set background=dark
:highlight normal ctermfg=grey ctermbg=black cterm=none
:set tabstop=2
:set nu
:set autoindent
:set guifont=14
:syntax on

:2,4 co 32            copy lines 2 thru 4 to line 32
:2,4 m 32             move lines 2 thru 4 to line 32
:2,4 d                delete lines 2 thru 4

:!command_name        executes a command without leaving vi; :!pwd
:9 !command_name      copy command's output to line 9

:n                    go to the next opened file if more than 1 file are opened
:rew                  go to the first opened file if more than 1 file are opened
:args                 list all opened files

:w, q, x, qw          save, quit vi, save and quit, save and quit

Useful VIMDIFF Commands:

do - Get changes from other window into the current window.
dp - Put the changes from current window into the other window.
]c - Jump to the next change.
[c - Jump to the previous change.
zr - open ALL folded lines.
zo - open folded lines.
zc - close folded lines.
Ctrl+w,w - change window.
:diffupdate
:only | wq - quit other windows, write and quit
:qa quit all

.vimrc

set background=dark
highlight normal ctermfg=grey ctermbg=black cterm=none
set tabstop=4
set syntax=bash
set nu
set autoindent
set guifont=14
syntax on
set softtabstop=2
set tabstop=2 shiftwidth=2 expandtab
set showcmd
set cursorline
set wildmenu
set showmatch
set hlsearch                                                                                                                                                                                                    
set incsearch