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" 

 
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 *  Copyright (C) 1994, 1999 Tony Thomas 
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 *  Last revision Feb 23, 1999 
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