The VI nano-HOWTO for the NewbieDoc Project

5.1. Cursor motions

There are tons of ways to move the cursor around, so I'll just give the basic ones:

• Normal motion: cursor keys, (which are emulated by h,j,k,l if the terminal (or the currrent keymap) doesn't support cursor keys)

• Line motion: ^ go to the first non blank character in current line, $ last character in current line

• gg go to beginning of file Goto: G go to end of file, xxG go to line xx

5.2. Repeating commands

In order to repeat a command several times, you may specify the number of repeats and then the command.(eg: 10h will move the cursor 10 characters to the left)

5.3. Inserting Text

Now that you can move the cursor around, let's see how you can type text:

BE CAREFUL:

1. When in insert mode, you can delete only the text you've just insered.To delete other parts of the file, get out of insert mode (ESC) and go toDeleting Text

   Vim specific: If you add the following command to your ~/.vimrc or type it while running vim you will be able to backspace through the entire buffer, not just the text entered during the current "input session". :set backspace=2

2. When you delete text that has just been inserted, see that the letters aren't erased from the screen. Instead the cursor just moves backwards and what you type will overwrite what you had "deleted". Just get used to it.

   Vim specific: This occured in original vi, and apparently in some modern clones (it was probably originally due to lack of processing power). In vim this isn't a problem -- all the characters you delete will disappear immediately, except perhaps when being used over a slow dialup line, but then the problem is the dialup line and not vi(m).

Most common insertion commands, all the following commands will get you in insert mode, but in different ways:

• Appending (a): insert text after current cursor position

• Inserting (i): insert text before current cursor position

• Open New Line (o): open new line below current line and insert

All those commands have their counterparts in capital letters:

• Appending at end of line (A): insert text after last character on the line

• Inserting at beginning of line (I): insert text before first non blanck character on the line

• Open New Line (O): open new line above current line and insert

N.B.: insertion (as well as most commands) can be combined with a "multiplier", in the same way than cursor commands:

10a(type your text...) will repeat 10 times the command a. So vi will append the text you've just typed in ten times.

5.4. Deleting Text

The delete command, as many others can be mixed with cursor commands, so that all text is deleted between the current cursor position and the new cursor position.

Deletion commands:

• Deleting a character (x or X): deletes the character under (x) or before (X) the current cursor position

• Deleting a word (dw or db): deletes word after (dw) or before (db) cursor

• Deleting half a line (d^ or d$): deletes from the beginning of the line to the current cursor's position (d^) or from the cursor's position to the end of the line (d$)

• Deleting a line (dd): deletes current line

Deletion can be combined with a "multiplier", in the same way as cursor commands: 10dd will delete 10 lines

Deleted text will be stored in the 'yank' buffer, replacing the previous one. (see Yanking and Pasting)

5.5. Yanking and Pasting

Copy and paste in vi is very powerful. We'll concentrate on single-buffer yanking, but be informed that, just like emacs, you can copy text into many buffers, although it is not automated.

Yanking text means 'copy'. The corresponding command is y and its syntax is exactly that same as delete's:

Yanking commands:

• Yanking a word (yw or yb): yanks word after (yw) or before (yb) cursor

• Yanking half a line (y^ or y$): yanks line from the current cursor position to the first non-blank character on the line (y^) or from current to the end of line (y$)

• Yanking a line (yy): yanks current line

WARNING: entering insert mode will erase the yank buffer.

Vim specific: Vim doesn't erase the yank buffer when you enter insert mode.

Pasting commands:

There is only one pasting command: p , which means paste text in yank buffer after current cursor position.There is also its counterpart P for pasting before cursor.

6.1. Searching and Replacing

Searching text is done with the command /xxx for a forwards search or ?yyy for a backwards search. n will skip to the next occurrence.When specifying / without argument vi will default to the argument of the last search.

Global Search and Replace:

The magic command is

:line1,line2s/old_string/new_string/g

The /g is optional, it means 'do the replace everytime'.If not specified, vi will replace only the first occurrence in each line.

Special ^XX characters

To search for a ^XX character, you must use Ctrl-v (^v) in order to disable interpretation of the Ctrl commands.

A useful example:

Windows (MS-DOS) text files use RETURN/LINEFEED to end every line; Mac uses only RETURN; and Unix/Linux uses only NEWLINE (which is the same as the linefeed in DOS). To use the linux programming style:

\r\n = chr(13)chr(10) = MS-DOS

\r = chr(13) = Mac

\n = chr(10) = Linux/Unix

So when displaying an msdos ascii file with vi (or with any other text editor), you will find each and every line ended by a ^M (it's character 13, aka \r, aka ENTER). When displaying a mac ascii file, you will have a single line with a ^M at what should be each end of line.

Our MSDOS text file should look like this:

Friday the 13th^M ^M ^M ^M Dear Sir,^M ^M ....

And our mac text file should look like that

"Friday the 13th^M^M^MDearSir,^M^M...."

[The Macintosh->Unix conversion isn't easy to do with vi macros, so we'll concentrate on msdos/windows->Unix]

MS-DOS/Windows -> UNIX conversion:

In order to remove these ugly ^M, you search for them and replace them by....nothing!

So first, let's search for those weird ^M ... but, how can you search for character 'ENTER'?

By preceeding it with ^V (Control-V). Any keystroke after ^V is accepted literally -- that is, it won't have its usual command function, if it's something like ESC, ENTER, ^Z, etc...

What the following command tells VI to do is to replace the first (since the /g option isn't set, but anyway, we only expect one) ^M on every line, with nothing (there is nothing between the last two slashes: //):

This is what you type

                     :1,$s/^V^M//   

(where ^V is Control-V, and ^M is ENTER or Control-M)

note that VI doesn't display the ^V, so you'll only see

                   :1,$s/^M//
   

This what you actually see

And it should work...

[FYI the "text-edition task force" is working on an elegant way to convert mac ascii files to unix, but the first research campaign hasn't brought us much]