I’ve noticed that people older than me have always known just a few more vi commands than I do.
I’m in my 40s, so clearly I know about 4:
Writes and quits (I consider these variants of the same thing):
:w
:q
:q!
:wq
ZZ
See the line numbers:
:set number
Delete everything from top to bottom (must be at top, easily remembered by mumbling duck, duck, duck, GOOSE):
:dddG
Search for a string:
/
And that’s probably it. I think I used to know how to cut a line and paste a line, but I’d have to look it up to be 100% correct on the syntax.
Anyone in their 50s or 60s care to add to this dazzlingly long list of inadequacy? Not looking for a cheat sheet or the man page :-p
I’m 19 and I know nine.
:w :q :wq :q! yy dd p u ^rI still have my tractor feed print out of the vi manual from 1991.
3dd Delete 3 lines
3yy yank 3 lines
P and p put back text after or before cursor
Tx move to character after the x
cut a line and paste a line
ddto cut a line,p/Pto paste below or above current lineDelete everything from the cursor up until a particular character on the same line, not including that character. For example, until the next close-parenthesis:
dt)Increment the number under cursor:
Ctrl-aDecrement the same (I always forget this one):
Ctrl-xI know a few more interesting ones but nowhere near what actual vim people know.
- d, y, p - delete, yank, paste as others have said.
- r - replace the character under the cursor with something else
- g - go somewhere (gt is go to next tab which you can open with :tabedit )
- v - visual mode for selecting text to yank with y
- c - change - deletes a thing and goes to insert mode, like d but not. Eg.
- cc - change the current line
- cw - change the next word
My favourite is ci - change inside
ci" - changes all the text that’s inside the next set of quotes.
ci( changes the text inside the next set of parentheses. Etc.
I also use :mouse=a which I’m told is sacrilege but sometimes I like to click on a thing!
Ooh nice
ciis a new one for me, gonna try to encode that oneyou can also parameterize the change word command, e.g.
c3wwill delete the next three words and put you in insert mode. it’s handy for changing multiword variables or paths.
My friend is giving away some free copies of his book for learning vim, it’s been super helpful for me. First come first serve
Its too much you left out but I recommend buying a vim book! It will upskill you to master.
Very useful for renaming a variable:
*to search “word” under cursor. Try this with hlsearch on::set hlsearch. Thencwto change a match. Alternatenand.to quickly rename more occurrences of the word. Do a:nohto get rid of the highlighting. Maybe try:set noinc, some people prefer the traditional “non-incremental” search.Do all this in normal mode. Vim experts leave insert mode as soon as possible. Almost forgot: Pressing
C-ctakes you back to normal mode without leaving home row.Most important advice: Never touch arrow keys. Keep your fingers on the home row. Learn
hjklmovement (focus onjandk, they are more important). Then get faster by usingb,w,f,o,O,A,I,C-dand all the rest. Learn aboutJ, it’s cool. You won’t get far withoutuandC-rthough.Critically important advice for fellow Europeans: If you care about vim, consider learning the US keyboard layout. Default bindings are not convenient in other layouts like qwertz (where is forward slash on qwertz? Hello?), and learning US layout might be easier than learning to customize vim. On a typical modern Linux system, there are US layout variants that still allow typing Umlauts, like EurKey or “DE-US”, where you type
äby pressing RightAlt+a, for example.I am in my 50s and have used vi/vim as my principal editor for 30 years. I don’t think enumerating commands will be possible. If you have questions about how to do something, I will try to answer them.
