Why vi? With sophisticated GUI editors around, I would not recommend using vi for normal text editing. But there are always situations (such as login to different or remote machines) when no other editor is available. Furthermore, vi facilitates regular expression-based substitution.
| default is command mode | |||||||
| enter text-mode |
| leave text-mode | press ESC
| enter ex mode | press :
| leave ex mode | press RETURN or ESC
| |
Exercises
Open a file. Enter text mode. Type several lines. Leave text mode. Go to the second line and type something after it. Leave text mode. Go back to the second line and type something before it. Open a new line. Go to the first line and change it. Etc.
| go right | l, SPACE, right arrow |
| go left | h, BKSPC, left arrow |
| go to next line | +, RETURN |
| go down | j, Ctrl-n, Ctrl-j, down arrow |
| go up | k, Ctrl-p, up arrow |
| go to beginning of the line | ^ |
| go to end of the line | $ |
| next word | w |
| previous word | b |
| go to beginning of the file | H |
| go to end of the file | L |
| next page | Ctrl-f |
| previous page | Ctrl-b |
| put current line on top of screen | z RETURN |
| delete character | x |
| delete line | dd |
| undo | u |
| repeat command | . |
| forward search | /pattern RETURN |
| backward search | ?pattern RETURN |
| repeat forward search | n |
| repeat backward search | N |
| clear screen | Ctrl-r or Ctrl-l |
| show status message | Ctrl-g |
Exercises
Try all of the above. Do several searches.
| save | w |
| quit and save | wq or x |
| quit without saving | q! |
| show mode | set showmode |
| show line numbers | set number (set nonumber) |
| show matching parenthesis | set showmatch |
| execute Unix command | ! command |
| search | /search_pattern/ |
| repeat search | // |
| search backwards | ?search_pattern? |
| substitute (replace) | s/search_pattern/replace_pattern/ |
| substitute globally | 1,$s/.../.../g |
| substitute globally and ask for confirmation | 1,$s/.../.../gc |
| set ignore case for searches | set ic |
| variable for replacement string | & |
Exercises
Try all of the above. Type some more text. Save it. Make changes. Etc.
| /etc/termcap | terminal settings |
| .exrc | user defined settings for commands, etc |
| . | Any single character except a newline |
| ^ | The beginning of the line or string |
| $ | The end of the line or string |
| * | Zero or more of the last character |
| \{m,n\} | at least m times, at most n times |
| \{m,\} | at least m times |
| \{m\} | exactly m times |
| [ ] | any character found between [] |
| [^ ] | any character not found between [] |
| [qjk] | Either q or j or k |
| [^qjk] | Neither q nor j nor k |
| [a-z] | Anything from a to z inclusive |
| [^a-z] | No lower case letters |
| [a-zA-Z] | Any letter |
| \ | escape |
| [:space:] | a space |
| \( \) | remembering a pattern, referred to by \1, \2, etc |
Exercise
Find the next occurrence of
THE or the or The or
a word that starts with b
a number
a punctuation mark
a non-letter
a line that starts with "the" and ends with "."
the next double character
| grep |
| sed |
| |