Practical Manual: over 130 common Vim commands to improve development efficiency

Practical Manual: over 130 common Vim commands to improve development efficiency

Vim is a text editor developed from vi. Code Completion, compilation, error jump, and other convenient programming functions are particularly rich and widely used by programmers. It is used in parallel with Emacs to become your favorite editor for Unix-like systems. The vim commands required by more than 130 programmers are included here to help you improve development efficiency.

Basic commands

: E filename	OpenFilenameFor edition
: W	Save file
: Q	Exit Vim
: Q!	Quit without saving
: X	Write file (if changes has been made) and exit
: Sav filename	Saves fileFilename
.	Repeats the last change made in normal mode
5.	Repeats 5 times the last change made in normal mode

Move in file

K or Up Arrow	Move the cursor up one line
J or Down Arrow	Move the cursor down one line
E	Move the cursor to the end of the word
B	Move the cursor to the begining of the word
0	Move the cursor to the begining of the line
G	Move the cursor to the end of the file
Gg	Move the cursor to the begining of the file
L	Move the cursor to the bottom of the screen
: 59	Move cursor to line59. Replace59By the desired line number.
20 |	Move cursor to column20.
%	Move cursor to matching parenthesis
[[	Jump to function start
[{	Jump to block start

Cut, copy, and paste

Y	Copy the selected text to clipboard
P	Paste clipboard contents
Dd	Cut current line
Yy	Copy current line
Y $	Copy to end of line
D	Cut to end of line

Search

/Word	SearchWordFrom top to bottom
? Word	SearchWordFrom bottom to top
*	Search the word under cursor
/\ Cstring	SearchSTRINGOrString, Case insensitive
/Jo [ha] n	SearchJohnOrJoan
/\ <	Search the, theater orThen
/The \>	SearchTheOrBreathe
/\ <The \>	SearchThe
/\ <Rule. \>	Search all words of 4 letters
/\/	SearchFredBut notAlfredOrFrederick
/Fred \ | joe	SearchFredOrJoe
/\ <\ D \>	Search exactly 4 digits
/^ \ N \ {3}	Find 3 empty lines
: Bufdo/searchstr/	Search in all open files
Bufdo % s/something/somethingelse/g	SearchSomethingIn all the open buffers and replace itSomethingelse

Replace

: % S/old/new/g	Replace all occurencesOldByNewIn file
: % S/onward/forward/gi	Replace onward by forward, case unsensitive
: % S/old/new/gc	Replace all occurences with confirmation
: 2, 35 s/old/new/g	Replace all occurences between lines 2 and 35
: 5, $ s/old/new/g	Replace all occurences from line 5 to EOF
: % S/^/hello/g	Replace the begining of each lineHello
: % S/$/Harry/g	Replace the end of each lineHarry
: % S/onward/forward/gi	ReplaceOnwardByForward, Case unsensitive
: % S/* $ // g	Delete all white spaces
: G/string/d	Delete all lines containingString
: V/string/d	Delete all lines containing which didn't containString
: S/Bill/Steve/	Replace the first occurenceBillBySteveIn current line
: S/Bill/Steve/g	ReplaceBillBySteveIn current line
: % S/Bill/Steve/g	ReplaceBillBySteveIn all the file
: % S/^ M/g	Delete DOS carriage returns (^ M)
: % S/\ r/g	Transform DOS carriage returns in returns
: % S # <[^>] \ +> # g	Delete HTML tags but keeps text
: % S/^ \ (. * \) \ n \ 1 $/\ 1/	Delete lines which appears twice
Ctrl +	Increment number under the cursor
Ctrl + x	Decrement number under cursor
GgVGg?	Change text to Rot13

Case sensitivity

Vu	Lowercase line
VU	Uppercase line
G ~~	Invert case
VEU	Switch word to uppercase
VE ~	Modify word case
GgguG	Set all text to lowercase
GggUG	Set all text to uppercase
: Set ignorecase	Ignore case in searches
: Set smartcase	Ignore case in searches incluted if an uppercase letter is used
: % S/\ <./\ u &/g	Sets first letter of each word to uppercase
: % S/\ <./\ l &/g	Sets first letter of each word to lowercase
: % S/. */\ u &	Sets first letter of each line to uppercase
: % S/. */\ l &	Sets first letter of each line to lowercase

Read/write files

: W outfile	Saves lines 1 to 10 inOutfile
: W> outfile	Appends lines 1 to 10Outfile
: R infile	Insert the contentInfile
: 23r infile	Insert the contentInfileUnder line 23

File Browser

: E.	Open integrated file explorer
: Sex	Split window and open integrated file explorer
: Sex!	Same: SexBut split window vertically
: Browse e	Graphical file explorer
: Ls	List buffers
: Cd ..	Move to parent directory
: Args	List files
: Args *. php	Open file list
: Grep expression *. php	Returns a list of. php files conteningExpression
Gf	Open file name under cursor

Interaction with Unix systems

:! Pwd	ExecutePwdUnix command, then returns to Vi
!! Pwd	ExecutePwdUnix command and insert output in file
: Sh	Temporary returns to Unix
$ Exit	Retourns to Vi

Alignment

: %! Fmt	Align all lines
!} Fmt	Align all lines at the current position
5 !! Fmt	Align the next 5 lines

Tab/window

: Tabnew	Creates a new tab
Gt	Show next tab
: Tabfirst	Show first tab
: Tablast	Show last tab
: Tabm n (position)	Rearrange tabs
: Tabdo % s/foo/bar/g	Execute a command in all tabs
: Tab ball	Puts all open files in tabs
: New abc.txt	EditAbc.txtIn new window

Split-screen display

: E filename	EditFilenameIn current window
: Split filename	Split the window and openFilename
Ctrl-w up arrow	Puts cursor in top window
Ctrl-w	Puts cursor in next window
Ctrl-w _	Maximize current window vertically
Ctrl-w |	Maximize current window horizontally
Ctrl-w =	Gives the same size to all windows
10 ctrl-w +	Add 10 lines to current window
: Vsplit file	Split window vertically
: Sview file	Same as: split in readonly mode
: Hide	Close current window
: ­ Nly	Close all windows, sorted Ted current
: B 2	Open #2 in this window

Automatic completion

Ctrl + n Ctrl + p (in insert mode)	Complete word
Ctrl + x Ctrl + l	Complete line
: Set dictionary = dict	DefineDictAs a dictionnary
Ctrl + x Ctrl + k	Complete with dictionnary

Mark

M {a-z}	Marks current position{A-z}
'{A-z}	Move to position{A-z}
''	Move to previous position

Abbreviations

: AB mail mail@provider.org

DefineMailAs abbreviationMail@provider.org

Text indent

: Set autoindent	Turn on auto-indent
: Set smartindent	Turn on intelligent auto-indent
: Set shiftwidth = 4	Defines 4 spaces as indent size
Ctrl-t, ctrl-d	Indent/un-indent in insert mode
>	Indent
<	Un-indent
= %	Indent the code between parenthesis
1GVG =	Indent the whole file

Code highlighting

: Syntax on	Turn on syntax highlighting
: Syntax off	Turn off syntax highlighting
: Set syntax = perl	Force syntax highlighting

For more Vim tutorials, see the following:

Build VIM into a simple and practical IDE

Vim Learning Guide

Quick learn Vi Editor

Powerful Vim Editor

Build a Vim Development Environment on CentOS 6.2

Install the highlighted Vim editing tool in CentOS 5.4

Vim tips: C language settings

Set the Vim row number in Ubuntu

Vim editor basic tutorial

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