VI Editor

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VI Editor

Inserting and Appending Text

a - Append text after the cursor
A - Appends text at the end of the line
i - Inserts text before the cursor
I - Inserts text at the beginning of the line
o - Opens a new line below the cursor
O - Opens a new line above the cursor
:r Inserts text from another file into the current file

Key Sequence for the VI Editor

n, left arrow or backspace Left one characters
j or down arrow Down one line
k or up arrow Up one line
l, right arrow or spacebar Right one character
w Forward one word
b Back one word
e To the end of the current word
$ To the end of the line
0 (zero) To the beginning of the line
^ To the first non whitespace character on the line
Return Down to the beginning of the next line
G Goes to the last line of the file
1G Goes to the first line of the file
:n Goes to the line n
nG Goes to the line n
Ctrl F Pages forward one screen
Ctrl D Scroll down one half screen
Ctrl B Pages back one screen
Ctrl U Scrolls up one half screen
Ctrl L Refreshes the screen

Editing files using the VI editing commands

R Overwrites or replace characters to the right of the cursor
C Changes or overwrites characters to the end of the line
s Substitute a string for a character at the cursor
x Deletes a character at the cursor
dw Deletes a word or part of the word to the right of the cursor
dd Dletes the line containing the cursor
D Deletes the line from the cursor to the right end of the line
:n,nd Deletes the line n through n

Using the Text Changing Commands

u Undoes the previous command
U Undoes all changes to the current line
. Repeats the previous command

Search and Replace Command
/string Searches forward for the string
?string Searches backward for the string
n Searches the next occurrence of the string
N Searches for the previous occurrence of the string
:%s/old/new/g Searches for the old string and replace it with the new string globally

Using the text copying and Text Pasting Commands

yy Yanks a copy of a line
p Puts yanked or deleted text under the line containing the cursor
P Puts yanked or deleted text before the line containing the cursor
:n,n co n Copies lines n through n and puts them after line n
:n,n m n Moves lines n through n to line n