Useful vim commands - bloominstituteoftechnology/CS-Wiki GitHub Wiki

This is a collection of command examples that are commonly used by instructors here at Lambda School.

This is not a complete reference or a tutorial. It is just the commands that we commonly use in order to edit quickly. See the links for more in-depth information.

  • [ESC] means to hit the escape key.
  • [RET] means to hit the return key.
  • CTRL-x means hold down control and x.

See Also

Editing

  • I: insert at the beginning of the line
  • A: append starting at end of line
  • D: delete to end of line
  • C: change from here to end of line
  • rX: replace the current character with character X
  • R: start replacing characters from the cursor on
  • ~: change the case of a character
  • dd: delete (cut) the current line
  • dw: delete the current word
  • d$: delete from cursor to end of line
  • dtX: delete all characters up to the next occurrence of X in the line
  • dTX: delete all characters down to the previous occurrence of X in the line
  • ctX: change the characters from the cursor to the next occurrence of X in the line

Moving

  • h j k l: move the cursor left, down, up, and right faster than reaching for the arrow keys
  • $: move to end of line
  • ^: move to the first non-space character in the line
  • 0: move to the beginning of the line
  • tX: move to the next X character in the line
  • TX: move to just after the previous X character in the line
  • e: move to the end of the next (or current) word
  • b: move to the beginning of the previous (or current) word
  • w: move to the beginning of the next (or current) word
  • CTRL-f: move forward a page (page down)
  • CTRL-b: move backward a page (page up)
  • *: move to the next occurrence of the word under the cursor
  • #: move to the previous occurrence of a word under the cursor
  • %: move to the open/close brace/bracket/paren paired with the one under the cursor
  • /foo[RET]: search for the next occurrence of foo in the file
  • ?foo[RET]: search for the previous occurrence of foo in the file
  • n: repeat the last search
  • N: repeat the last search, but in the other direction

Markers

  • ma: set marker a at the cursor location (can use any letter a-z)
  • `a: jump to marker a (can use any letter a-z)

Visual Blocks

  • v: start a cursor-oriented visual block
  • V: start a line-oriented visual block
  • CTRL-v: start a rectangular visual block

Once a block is selected:

  • c: change the block to different text (with rectangular blocks, this makes one cursor per line)
  • d: delete the block
  • y: yank (copy) the block
  • :s/foo/bar/g[RET]: replace all occurrences of foo with bar in the block (this will show up as :'<,'> when you first start typing)

Search and Replace

The following use regexes:

  • :s/foo/bar[RET]: replace the first occurrence of foo with bar on the current line
  • :s/foo/bar/g[RET]: replace all occurrences of foo with bar on the current line
  • :%s/foo/bar/g[RET]: replace all occurrence of foo with bar on all lines in the file

Cut/Copy/Paste

  • dd: delete (cut) the current line
  • dw: delete the current word
  • d$: delete from cursor to end of line
  • dtX: delete all characters up to the next occurrence of X in the line
  • dTX: delete all characters down to the previous occurrence of X in the line
  • x: delete the character under the cursor
  • yy: copy the current line
  • yw: copy the current word
  • y$: copy from cursor to end of line
  • p: paste after cursor position
  • P: paste before cursor position

GUI-based vims often support COMMAND-c/CTRL-c and COMMAND-v/CTRL-v for copying and pasting from the system buffer. (Note that the system copy/paste buffer is different from that used by the y and p commands.) If you're using the console-based vim, you might have to select the text to copy with the mouse if you want to copy it to the system copy/paste buffer.

Counting

  • 20ix[ESC]: insert 20 x characters
  • 15~: change the case of the next 15 characters
  • 5k: move the cursor up 5 lines
  • 12yy: copy 12 lines

Saving and Quitting

  • :q[RET]: quit unless the file has been modified
  • :q![RET]: quit even if the file has been modified, discarding changes
  • ZZ: save the file (only if it has been modified) and quit
  • :qa[RET]: quit all open tabs
  • :qa![RET]: quit all open tabs even if the files have been modified, discarding changes

Misc

  • .: repeat the last edit command, e.g. AHello[ESC]j. will add Hello to the end of the current and next line
  • xp: transpose the character under the cursor with the next one; not really a special command--simply x to cut the current character under the cursor followed by p to paste it after the cursor position
  • !!ls[RET]: run the ls command and insert its output into the document (can run any command)
  • :sh[RET]: spawn an interactive shell (hit CTRL-d or type exit[RET] to get back to vim)

Tabs

  • WIP
  • :q[RET]: close the current window or tab (if multiple windows or tabs are open)

Split Screen/Windows

  • WIP
  • :q[RET]: close the current window or tab (if multiple windows or tabs are open)

Macros

  • WIP