2. Commands

Below you will find a cheat-sheet with vi commands. This cheat sheet will also come in handy in the next section of this document,
Practice Lesson #1.

vi cheat-sheet



a. cursor movements (items below are sometimes called objects):

        h - left one character

        l - right one character

        j - down one line

        k - up one line

        w - right one word

        b - back one word

        $ - to the end of line

        0 - to the beginning of the line

        ) - right one sentence

        ( - left one sentence

        } - right one paragraph

        { - left one paragraph

        Ctrl-F - forward one page

        Ctrl-B - back one page

        G - go to (without arguments, go to end of file)

b. deleting:

        d - delete

                then add one of the cursor movement symbols to

                show what should be deleted, i.e.:

                d$ - delete to end of line

                d0 - delete to the beginning of the line

                d} - delete to the end of paragraph

        dd - delete delete (delete the whole line)

        x - delete character cursor is on

c. other basic commands:

        r - replace one character

        ZZ - save and exit (hold down shift and press "z" twice)

        y - yank (copy into temporary buffer)

                then add cursor movement symbol to show what should be

                copied, for example: y) - copy to the end of sentence

        Y - yank line cursor is on

        p - paste below cursor line (deleted or copied text)

        P - paste above cursor line

        u - undo last editing command

        /sometext - search for "sometext"



d. any command can take numeric argument before the name of "object", i.e.:

        5dd - delete 5 lines beginning with cursor line (or) d5d - same

        2dw - delete two words (or) d2w - delete two words

        c3w - change 3 words

        3Ctrl-B - move up three pages

        1G - go to the first line

e. external commands can be performed on the selected text (in lines)

   if command is started with "!", i.e.:

        !}fmt - reformat paragraph to 72 columns

f. command line (sometimes called "ex mode"):

        :

g. from the command line a "set" command can be executed to 

   customize editing environment, i.e.:

        :set all - will show the state of all options

        :set number - will show on the screen numbers of all lines

        :set autoindent   // obvious

h. from the command line operations can be performed on the range of lines,

   i.e.:

        :18,24 del - delete from line 18 to line 24

        :23,48 copy 17 - block from line 23 to 48 copy to line 17

        :2,17 move 92 - block from line 2 to 17 move to line 92

i. from the command line any external UNIX command can be performed on 

   the range of lines if line range is superseded by "!":

        :11,16! sed -e "s/^//*/" -e "s/$/*//"



                (the command above wraps the block of text with

                 "C" style comments - /* text */.  It can be done

                  easier, but this is an example)

        :14,19! sort -r +3

                (sort the table in reverse order by fourth column)

j. file manipulation from the command line:

        :r somefile - read in "somefile"

        :x - save and exit (if file is "Read Only", this command will

                exit without saving)

        :wq - write and quit (same as above)

        :w - write (save) if the file permissions allow it

        :w! - save file even if it is read-only as long as we own it

        :w somefile - save this file as "somefile"

        :q - quit without saving

        :q! - quit without saving if changes were made

k. text input commands (all require "Esc" to terminate):

        i - insert text before the character cursor is on

        I - insert text at the beginning of the line

        a - append (insert text after the character cursor is on)

        A - append text to the end of the line

        c - change (replace previous text with new one)

                takes arguments just like the delete command - it is

                a fast and powerful way of changing original text -

                much more so than typical "overwrite"



        R - start overwriting text

        o - start entering text at the beginning of the new line

            below the cursor

        O - start entering text at the beginning of the new line

            above the cursor

l. if in doubt, press "Esc"