| 1.0 Waht is Vi |
|---|
|
What is vi?
|
|
Original Material is from E. Larry Lidz's FAQ.
|
|
vi is a Visual Editor (hence the name -- vi for VIsual). What is a
visual editor (as opposed to a non-visual one)? Visual editors are
ones that let you see the document that you are editing as you edit
it. This seems pretty common in most editors today, so the idea of a
non-visual editor is a little strange. Examples of non-visual editors
are sed, ex, ed, and edlin (the last one being the editor shipped with
DOS until relatively recently.)
vi was written by William Joy as part of the bsd distribution of
Unix. It was later used by AT&T, and has been standard Unix since.
|
| 1.1 Advantages |
|---|
|
What is the big deal about vi? Why does anyone use it? More
importantly, why should *I* use it?
|
|
vi is default visual editor under Unix, and is therefore shipped with
all recent version of Unix. (Recent being defined as post 1984 or
so.) This means that whenever you run across a machine that is running
a Unix of some sort, you will know that you have a powerful editor at
your finger tips. Why else? vi is a powerful editor. Also, once you
know vi, you can edit files really quickly, as it is extremely
economical with the keystrokes. Due to its different modes for
inserting and issuing commands, it is much faster than most non-mode
based editors. It is also a very small editor. (The version on my
machine is 200k) Also, it can do almost anything, as long as you know
how to get it to do what you want.
|
| 1.2 VI is Hard to Learn |
|---|
|
Wow! This sounds great! Is there any reason not to use vi?
|
|
Yes. There is a very good reason. It can be somewhat hard to learn,
and until you do so, it will be slow and painful. Once you learn it,
it will be faster, but the process of learning it is slow. I've been
asked if vi was an easy editor to learn, whether it was intuitive or
not. My general response to this question is: "Yes, some of us think
so. But most people think that we are crazy."
|
| 1.3 OS |
|---|
|
What different operating systems is vi available for?
|
|
Unix. That's it. However, there are many, many clones of vi that are
available for different operating systems. I personally have used vi
clones under: Unix, Dos, OS/2, Mac System 7. (See below for a list of
specifics.)
|
| 1.4 Where to Start |
|---|
|
Okay, you've convinced me. I'm going to learn vi. Where do I start?
|
|
Book
|
|
Well... That's a tricky one. There are many good books out there
that cover vi; most books on Unix have at least one chapter devoted to
it. There are also many books devoted specifically to vi. I don't
have any preference, so your best bet might be to ask your local vi
guru where they learned.
|
|
Play Around
|
|
Fire up vi with a
non-important document (your dissertation is NOT a good document to
learn vi with...) and play around. I can't imagine anyone learning vi
without playing around with it quite a bit.
|
|
Remember, if you get confused, just hit the Escape key a couple of times,
and you'll be in command mode again.
|
|
I should mention at some point, and I guess here is as good a place
as any, that people who think they might want to do Unix system
administration, or any type of configuration of unix machines will
probably also want to learn ed or ex, as some versions of Unix do not
put vi in the root partition, and one might be stranded without it at
some point. Ed is a good choice.
|
| 1.5 Vi Clone |
|---|
|
What are some of the vi clones that are available?
|
|
Just to list a few: STvi (STevie), elvis, vile, vim, and nvi, xvi.
|
|
elvis is available for: Amiga, DOS, OS/2, Unix, VMS, Atari.
|
|
STevie is available for: Atari ST, DOS, Unix, Mac System 7.
|
|
nvi is the vi that will ship with BSD 4.4.
|
|
vim is available for: Amiga, DOS, Mac System 7, Unix.
|
|
vile is available for: DOS, OS/2, Unix, VMS, Window95, WindowsNT (console mode onle).
|
|
The source is available at: ftp://id.wing.net/pub/pgf/vile
|
|
xvi is available for: DOS, Unix.
|
|
Mortice Kern Systems (support@mks.com), who I have absolutely no
affiliation with, offers a commercial version of vi for DOS/Windows,
OS/2, and WindowsNT.
|
|
There are some differences between the different vi clones. Many
offer improvements, but most still allow the commands that are listed
in this document, but there may be some differences. Refer to the
documentation that comes with the clone for details.
|
| 2.0 Hints of Learning VI |
|---|
|
Learning vi.
|
|
Basic Hints for the novice vi user
|
|
First, keep a command summary with you at all times.
|
|
A quick reference guide/command summary is included later on.
|
|
Second, get a good book that covers vi.
|
|
As for choosing a book, the standard rules apply:
|
|
look at it before buying it. See if any of it makes sense to you.
Make sure that it has exercises that you can practice with. Compare it
with other books -- after all, vi can be very confusing, and you want
to make sure that it is the book that is confusing, and not just that
you underestimated the difficulty of learning vi.
|
|
Also, seek out vilearn or vitutor, programs designed to teach you the
basics of vi.
|
| 2.1 Learning By Playing Game |
|---|
|
What games will help me learn vi?
|
|
This may seem a bit silly, but there are many games on Unix systems
that can help you learn to use vi. These help particularly with the
basics. Although I don't know of any games that help with every vi
command, I do know of a few that will help you learn to use hjkl to
move the cursor around. NetHack, a rogue-like game, is particularly
good for this, as it is a large game and can be entertaining for quite
some time. Not to make the other games sound worse, but some other
ones are: rogue, moria, omega, worm, and snake.
|
| 2.2 Command Modes and Insert Mode |
|---|
|
What is the difference between Command mode & Insert mode?
|
|
Often cited as one of the main problems with vi, and equally often
cited as being one of its best strengths, vi differentiates between a
"Command mode" and an "Insert mode." Understanding this difference is
VITAL to learning vi. When one starts vi it starts in command mode.
In this mode, one can move around the file, and issue commands to
change certain areas of the text, cut, copy and paste sections of the
text and do much more. Insert mode is where one can actually insert
text. In other words, command mode is used to move around the
document, and insert mode is used to type text into the document.
|
|
Commands such as: a, i, c, C, O, o and others will switch one from
command mode to insert mode.
|
|
<Esc> or <ctrl-c> will take one out of insert mode and return one to
command mode.
|
|
Get used to this distinction. It is one of the things that makes vi
different from most other editors. It also allows one to do a lot of
things without taking one's hands from the standard keyboard position.
|
| 2.3 ESC Key |
|---|
|
Wait, my keyboard doesn't have a <Esc> key! What should I do?
|
|
Try hitting <ctrl-[> instead. If your keyboard has a <Meta> key, try
that. If neither of these work, try <ctrl-3>. Some DEC terminals use the
F11 key as escape.
|
| 2.4 End of File Symbols |
|---|
|
What are all of those ~s?
|
|
They're just there to let you know where the bottom of your file is,
they are not actually in your document, and you do not need to worry
about them.
|
| 2.5 HJKL |
|---|
|
I can't get used to using hjkl, do you have any suggestions?
|
|
First, if your terminal is set properly and you have a good
connection, you should be able to use the arrow keys. However, if you
think that you will be using vi a lot, then it makes sense to learn
hjkl, as they are faster to type. Also, there are occasions where you
may have a bad connection and the ESC sequences may get lost.
|
| 2.6 Quit Without Saving |
|---|
|
How do I quit without saving?
|
|
:q! will do it. If vi appears to have frozen, make sure that you
haven't hit <ctrl-S> by mistake. In order to undo a <ctrl-s>, hit
<ctrl-q>.
|
| 2.7 Insert a File |
|---|
|
How do I insert a file?
|
:r <filename> |
|---|
|
This will insert the file at the current location in the file you are
working on. If you specify a number before the r, it will insert it at
that location in the file.
|
| 2.8 Search |
|---|
|
How do I search for text?
|
|
/<text> will search forward.
|
|
?<text> will search backwards.
|
|
?? or // will repeat the last search.
|
|
It is worth noting that these are pretty much standard in Unix.
|
|
In addition, in vi, n will find the next occurrence.
|
|
N will repeat the last search, reversing the direction.
|
|
Regular Expressions may be used within searches.
|
| 2.9 Search a Control Sequence |
|---|
|
How do I search for a control sequence?
|
/<ctrl-v><ctrl-<seq>> |
|---|
|
<ctrl-v> will tell vi to take the next character literally, and not to take
it as a command.
|
| 2.10 Reformat |
|---|
|
How do I reformat text?
|
|
If your computer has the program fmt on it, all you need to do is
type !}fmt from command mode (without a : before it). This will
rejustify the text from the current location until the end of the
paragraph. If your machine does not have fmt, you need to find a
similar program. (I gather there are many such programs available from
the public domain, but I do not know much about them.)
|
| 2.11 Cut and Paste |
|---|
|
How do I copy text?
|
|
Okay, this might be a bit complicated. Take from this section what
you can, and reread it a few times. Also, experiment.
|
|
"<letter>yy will copy one line of text into register <letter>.
|
|
(A register is vi-lingo for a place to store data that was cut or copied.)
|
|
<letter> must be between a and z.
|
|
"<letter>dd will delete one line and place it in register <letter>.
|
|
You may use a number before the yy or dd to specify the number of lines.
|
|
Using an uppercase <letter> will append the text into the register leaving
what was there before.
|
|
"<letter>p will put the text after the cursor.
|
|
"<letter>P will put it before the cursor.
|
|
If the register contains the beginning or end of a line,
the line will be placed on another line as appropriate.
|
|
Y may be used as a short cut for yy.
|
|
In addition, y$, yH, yM, etc. are valid, as are the equivalent d commands.
|
|
For quick cuts and pastes, no register need be specified.
|
|
In this case, no appending is allowed, and
the register will be removed if another delete command is given.
(Including x).
|
|
For example, to move the previous paragraph, one would go to the top
of the paragraph, type "a13dd, move to the position in which one wishes
to put the paragraph, and then type "ap to put it below the current
line.
|
|
Now, presumably you want to be able to cut and paste into areas that
are not just the end of the line. In order to do this, use m<letter>
to mark an area. This letter may be the same as a cut/copy register,
they are stored in different area of memory. Then, type "<register>[y
or d]`<letter>. Where <register> is the register to put the text into,
<letter> is the letter used to make, and yy or dd as appropriate.
|
| 2.12 Undo |
|---|
|
Ahhhh!!! I just hit dG and lost my dissertation! What can I
do? (Or, I've just made a mistake, what should I do?)
|
|
u will undo the last command.
|
|
U will undo changes to the current line.
|
|
(Granted, a one line dissertation would not be much.)
|
|
:e! will reload the current document without saving any changes.
|
|
Deleted text gets stored in the registers numbered from 1 to 9.
|
|
"<n>p will put the last nth deletion.
|
|
You can quickly search the registers by trying one, hitting u,
and trying the next.
|
|
(In order to expedite this, vi uses . slightly differently than normal.
Instead of repeating the last command, it will try the next register,
so all you need to do is: "1p u . u ., etc. until you undo the delete
you want to undo.)
|
| 2.13 Partition a file |
|---|
|
I've just written my dissertation and have been told that I need
to have each section in a different file, what should I do?
|
|
:[m],[n]w <filename> will save between lines m and n to <filename>.
|
|
This line numbering method works for almost every : command. If you
use :[m],[n]w >> <filename> it will append it to the file.
|
| 2.14 Ex |
|---|
|
What's the deal with all of these : commands?
|
|
The commands that follow a : are commands from the ex editor.
|
|
These allow a lot of flexibility and power. For example, there are many
different ways to search and replace, all of with have some
similarities (in fact, they are in some ways the same...)
|
| 3.0 Search and Replace |
|---|
|
How do you do a search and replace?
|
|
Single Line
|
:s/old/new/g |
|---|
|
All Lines
|
:%s/old/new/g |
|---|
|
General Case:
|
:[range]s/old/new/[cgi] |
|---|
|
Where [range] is any line range, including line numbers, $ (end of
file), . (current location), % (current file), or just two numbers with
a dash between them. (Or even: .,+5 to mean the next five lines).
|
|
[cgi] is either c, g, i, or nothing.
|
|
c tells vi to prompt you before the changes,
|
|
g to change all of the occurrences on a line.
|
|
i tells vi to be case insensitive on the search.
|
|
Another method
|
:g/foobar/s/bar/baz/g |
|---|
|
This searches for foobar, and changes it to
foobaz. It will leave jailbars alone, which the other method will not.
Unfortunatly, if jailbars appears on the same line as foobar, it will
change, too.
|
|
Of course you can also use regular expression search patterns, and a
few other commands in the replacement part of the text. If you use
\( and \) in the pattern to escape a sequence, you can do lots of nifty
things.
|
|
For example:
|
:g/\(foo\)bar/s//\1baz/g |
|---|
|
change foobar for foobaz.
|
|
Special sequences allowed are:
|
| & | everything which was matched by the search
| \[1-9]
| The contents of the 1st-9th \(\) pair
| \u
| The next character will be made uppercase
| \U
| The characters until \e or \E will be made uppercase
| \l
| The next character will be made lowercase
| \L
| The characters until \e or \E will be made lowercase
| \[eE]
| end the selection for making upper or lowercase
| |
|---|
| 3.1 Search Key |
|---|
|
My / key is broken! How can I search and replace?
|
|
It doesn't really need to be a /. Lots of things will
work fine. (letters, numbers and a few other things won't...)
|
| 3.2 Run a Command |
|---|
|
How do I run a program from within vi?
|
|
:!cmd will run the program cmd.
|
|
:sh will run an interactive shell.
|
|
Within this shell, you may, if you want, run vi again.
|
|
This is
particularly useful when you are editing makefiles and config files for
programs in an attempt to get a program to compile. The advantage over
:e is that you do not need to save the file, and it will be in its old
place when you exit the shell. (I advise saving the file anyway...)
|
| 3.3 Recovery |
|---|
|
Ahhh!! I was writing my dissertation, and the computer crashed!
|
vi -r <filename> |
|---|
| 3.4 Tips |
|---|
|
Any tips for making vi programmer friendly?
|
|
:set ai
|
|
auto-indent
|
|
:set sw=#
|
|
where # is a number will set the shiftwidth (tabwidth).
|
|
You can then use <<, >> to shift a line left or right.
|
|
Plus, you can use <% to shift a {, ( or [ set left or right (with >%).
|
|
You must be on top of the specific {, }, (, ), [ or ] of the pair to shift them.
|
|
:set sm
|
|
show the matching {, ( or [ when you type the closing one.
|
|
:set lisp
|
|
make some changes that are useful for lisp programming.
|
|
() will move back and forth over s-expressions, and {}
will move without stopping at atoms.
|
| 3.5 Macros |
|---|
|
Macros -- How do I write them?
|
:map <lhs> <rhs> |
|---|
|
where <lhs> is up to ten characters and
|
|
<rhs> is up to 100.
|
|
This will make it so that whenever you type <lhs> it will
replace it with <rhs>.
|
|
All macros should start in command mode (except
those defined with map!), but may end in any mode you desire.
|
|
Remember to use <ctrl-v> before any control characters that you may use.
|
|
If you are using an Ex command, such as |, it needs to be escaped
which scanning the line. You should map is as :map foo
<ctrl-v><ctrl-v>|.
|
|
:unmap <lhs>
|
|
remove the macro.
|
|
:map! <lhs> <rhs>
|
|
make <lhs> insert <rhs> into the text of the document.
|
|
map! macros may have lhs's that are much longer.
|
| 3.6 Function Keys |
|---|
|
How do I make a function key a Macro?
|
|
If <lhs> is #n where n is 0-9, it will be mapped to the appropriate
function key.
|
| 3.7 Abbreviataion |
|---|
|
Is there anyway to abbreviate text?
|
|
:ab email ellidz@midway.uchicago.edu
|
|
whenever you type email as a specific word,
it will extend it to the entire unabbreviated word.
|
|
:una email
|
|
unabbreviate it.
|
| 3.9 Dos2UNIX |
|---|
|
How do I get rid the ^M's at the end of each line of my file?
|
|
How do I make a macro to do it?
|
|
These generally appear from DOS files that get converted to Unix.
They're easy to get rid of.
|
:%s/<ctrl-v><enter>//g will do it. |
|---|
|
The macro bit is a bit trickier. Not something that most people can
guess on their own. Here it is:
|
map v :%s/<ctrl-v><ctrl-v><ctrl-v><ctrl-v><ctrl-v><enter>//g |
|---|
|
Yes, that's right. 5 of them. The last one is to escape the enter.
Two of the other four are to escape the other two <ctrl-v>'s. Since the
macro gets read on the ex line, you need to have two <ctrl-v>'s (since you
are searching for <ctrl-v> <enter> to replace it with nothing...)
|
|
In general, if you are having a trouble with macro that uses the ex line,
you need to escape things a lot. Sometimes it is quicker to just keep
throwing <ctrl-v>'s in until it works.
|
| 3.11 Dumb |
|---|
|
I've got a hardcopy terminal, can I still use vi?
|
|
vi will start up in a specific mode, called "open mode" in this
situation. Things work more or less the same. Deleted characters will
appear on your print out at \'s. vi will act as if the size of the
window is only one line. ^r will retype the current line. z redraws
the window around the current line.
|
| 3.10 Open Mode |
|---|
|
But I don't have a hardcopy terminal, and it still starts in open mode!
|
|
Well, what is happening here is that vi doesn't know what type of
terminal you have. It decides that in this situation the best thing to
do is to assume that you have the worst terminal possible. This might
not seem useful, as not very many people need open mode, but it also is
the mode that needs to know the least information about your terminal.
|
|
Now, how to deal with it. It is possible to change it for the
specific session, but in general, this is not useful. If you know
your terminal type, you can set it from the Unix prompt (setenv TERM
<termtype> under csh and it's variants, and: TERM=<termtype> ; export
TERM under sh and its variants.).
|
|
Better yet would to be to edit your .profile or .chsrc to include
this so it is automatically done for you when you login. (Of course,
you need to either know ed or be able to set it at the unix prompt
before you'll be able to edit the file...)
|
|
If you do not know your terminal type, try vt100. Most modern
terminals and terminal emulators can emulate vt100. If this does not
work, find someone to help you.
|
| 5.1 VI Tricks |
|---|
|
Silly vi tricks
|
| xp | This will delete the character under the cursor, and put it
afterwards. In other words, it swaps the location of two characters.
| ddp
| Similar to xp, but swapping lines.
| yyp
| duplicate a line
| uu
| Undo and redo last change. .br (This will take you to the last
modification to the file without changing anything.) You can also use
this to compare the changes to a line. Make the changes to the line,
press U to undo the changes to the current line, and then press u to
toggle between the two versions.
| |
|---|
| 5.2 Macros |
|---|
|
Silly macros
|
| Swap character and one vertically above: |
map * kxjphxkP
| Fold a line that's too long
|
map g $80<ctrl-v><ctrl-v>|F r<ctrl-v><enter>
| Change case on most words
|
map v ywmno<ctrl-v><esc>P:s/./\~/g<ctrl-v><enter>0"nDdd`n@n
| Put `and' around the current word
|
map *` i`<ctrl-v><esc>ea'<ctrl-v><esc>
| Put 'and' around the current word
|
map *' i'<ctrl-v><esc>ea'<ctrl-v><esc>
| Put "and" around the current word
|
map *" i"<ctrl-v><esc>ea"<ctrl-v><esc>
| Put `and' around the current word
|
map! `` <ctrl-v><esc>bi`<ctrl-v><esc>ea'
| Split a line at the cursor, and put a > at the beginning of the next
line. (For quoting Usenet, etc). If word wrapping is enabled, it
might wrap the last word on the first line.
|
map g may0O<ctrl-v><esc>P`ay$:s/./ /g0i><ctrl-v><esc>`aPa<ctrl-v><esc>D
| Insert one character
|
map g i$^[r
| Format a paragraph without the fmt program. (To use, use J a few
times, then this a few times)
|
map K 072lBhr
| Make ctrl-x work as cut, ctrl-v as paste, ctrl-p as copy. You should
mark the beginning of the area as m (use mm). (ctrl-c cannot be
remapped)
|
map <ctrl-v><ctrl-x> "zd`m | map <ctrl-v><ctrl-p> "zy`m map <ctrl-v><ctrl-v><ctrl-v><ctrl-v> "zP Save a read-only file. Careful, it changes the permisions.
|
map K :!chmod 666 %<ctrl-v><enter>:w!<ctrl-v><enter><ctrl-v><enter>
| vi status line (sort of...) [Note: It's slow...]
|
map <ctrl-v><up-arrow> k<ctrl-v><ctrl-g> | map <ctrl-v><down-arrow> j<ctrl-v><ctrl-g> map k k<ctrl-v><ctrl-g> map j j<ctrl-v><ctrl-g> map <ctrl-v><ctrl-f> <ctrl-v><ctrl-f><ctrl-v><ctrl-g> map <ctrl-v><ctrl-b> <ctrl-v><ctrl-b><ctrl-v><ctrl-g> map H H<ctrl-v><ctrl-g> map M M<ctrl-v><ctrl-g> map L L<ctrl-v><ctrl-g> map G G<ctrl-v><ctrl-g> map <ctrl-v><ctrl-u> <ctrl-v><ctrl-u><ctrl-v><ctrl-g> map <ctrl-v><ctrl-d> <ctrl-v><ctrl-d><ctrl-v><ctrl-g> center a line
|
map = 80I <ctrl-v><esc>$78hd0:s/ / /g<ctrl-v><enter>$p
| redefines tab so that it inserts 5 spaces instead of a tab marker
|
map! <ctrl-v><ctrl-i> <space><space><space><space><space>
| switch current and last line (repeat to reverse a file)
|
map v Gdd''Pj
| |
|---|
| 6.0 Quick Reference |
|---|
|
Alphabetical vi quick reference
|
|
. command, as appropriate. This is normally a cursor movement
keys (h,j,k,l,w,b, etc.) or a line number.
|
| (spacebar) | next character
| (return)
| next line
| #
| (where # is a number) following command n times...
| :
| go to ex-mode
| )
| next sentence
| (
| previous sentence
| }
| next paragraph
| {
| previous paragraph
| ]]
| next section
| [[
| previous section
| 0
| beginning of line
| $
| end of line
| ^
| first non-whitespace character
| +
| first character of next line
| -
| first character of previous line
| /
| search forward
| ?
| search backward
| %
| find match of current parenthesis, brace, or bracket
| ,
| reverse direction of last f, F, t, or T
| ;
| repeat last f, F, t, or T
| .
| repeat last command
| `
| goto mark
| '
| goto beginning of line with mark
| ``
| return to previous mark or location before a search
| ''
| go to start of line of previous mark or location before search
| ~
| switch case of current character
| "
| store in register
| !!
| repeat last shell command
| !
| send next to command, replace output (eg !}fmt passes the current paragraph to the command fmt, and replaces the output with whatever fmt returns.)
| >>
| shift paragraph one shiftwidth to the right
| <<
| shift paragraph one shiftwidth to the left
| >%
| shift until matching (, [, or { to the right
| <%
| shift until matching (, [, or { to the left
| a
| append after the current location
| A
| append at the end of the line
| ^a
| unused
| b
| beginning of previous word
| B
| beginning of previous word, ignore punctuation
| ^b
| scroll back one screen
| c
| change until...
| C
| change to end of line
| ^c
| ends insert mode, unused in command mode
| d
| delete until...
| D
| delete to end of line
| ^d
| scroll down half a window, moves to previous shiftwidth in insert mode
| e
| end of word
| E
| end of word, ignore punctuation
| ^e
| scroll screen down one line
| f
| find...
| F
| find backward...
| ^f
| scroll forward one screen
| g
| unused
| G
| ...Goto [defaults to end of file]
| ^g
| show status line
| h
| left
| H
| first line on screen
| ^h
| backspace in insert mode, left in command mode
| i
| insert before current location
| I
| insert before first non-whitespace character on line
| ^i
| tab in insert, unused in command
| j
| down
| J
| join next line with current line
| ^j
| down in command, create newline in insert
| |
|---|