vi and vim cheat sheet

The normal is the default when you start up vi or vim. Keys pressed here are interpretted as commands and do something rather than get entered as editing changes.

You have to enter a mode in order to add text to a document, for instance you enter the command i to switch to insert mode. Other commands in normal mode include d and related commands to delete things, y commands to yank (copy) them, and p to paste them back into the document, and : commands to execute some commands on the file. All this described below.

• h move left one character
• j move down one line
• k move up one line
• l move right one character
• C-u page up
• C-d page down

• w move forward one word
• b move backward one word

• $ move to end of line
• 0 move to front of line
• ^ move to the first non-empty character

• H move to highest pt of screen
• M move to middle of screen
• L move to bottom of screen

• G move ('go') to end of document
• 8G move ('go') to the 8th line in the document
• 1G move ('go') to the 1st line in the document, i.e. the top
• gg move ('go') to the top (same thing as 1G)

• % when over a parenthesis, bracket or brace, move to the matching one (opening or closing). If the cursor does not move, you have a mismatch or syntax error

• fo find the character 'o' on the current line only.

When in another mode (i.e. not normal mode) the Escape key gets you out of input modes and back into command/normal mode. Escape also gets you out of the middle of a command sequence you don't want.

yank is a 2 character command, analogous to copy and paste

• y yanks "copies" something, depending on the second letter
• yl yanks a character
• yw yanks a word
• yy yanks a entire line

• 3yl yanks 3 characters
• 4yw yanks 4 words
• 5yy yanks 5 lines

• p puts back (pastes) what was yanked at the current line
• P puts back (pastes) what was yanked before the current line
• yyp duplicates a line

• u undoes the last thing you did
• U undoes ALl changes to the current line >as long as no other lines changed
• . repeat Repeats the previous action (except cursor movements)
• C-r to redo
• if you press u after being in insert mode, then u will undo the WHOLE insert change.

• / search forward for matching text
• ? search backward for matching text
• n repeats last search in the same direction ('next')
• N same ir reverse direction

so /gem hammer n n n will search for gem and again 3 times.

You must be in normal mode for : to work. The colon character jumps your focus to the command area at the bottom of your screen. There you enter the command you want.

• :w writes
• :q quits
• :wq writes and quits
• :ZZ writes and exits
• :q! quites without writting
• :gg move up to the top of the file (I think)
• :uu undo twice
• =
• :r filename Insert (or read) the file filename.
• :r headers.py Insert the file headers.py below the cursor.
• :0r headers.py Insert the file headers.py before the first line.
• :r !uname -a Insert the output of uname -a below the cursor.
• :$r !pwd Insert the current working directory below the last line.
• :!date execute the shell command date and return to vim
• :!unixcmd execute any unix shell command and return to vim

• :Explore (available in vim only, and is a file explorer)
  • hammer to enter a new different
  • / to search

You can add a plugin to vim, like nerdtree. To close a VIM window use:

• C-w c (window close)

v followed by moving the cursor, selects that block, It is the same as an emacs "mark" command C-<space>

C-v to visual block mode. Then select over two characters, then select down as much as you need, the hit d for delete

This could be used to uncomment a block of code, but there is no way to do the reverse, and comment code using visual block mode.

This lets you copy a region, by selecting frist, then poressing 'y' to yank. the you can move somewhere and press 'p' for paste.

after selecting a region, can press ~ to change all to upper and lower case. it is a toggle.

This one combination key can make a big difference. Basically you can take what you already know with cw, dw, i.e. change and delete, and do it inside a construct. The constructs (or delimiters) could be tick, back-ticks, dirks, bra-kets, open, curly, I think that is it.

• ' tick
• ` back-tick
• " dirk
• [] bra-kets
• () open close
• {} curly

So the sequence is c or d then i (inside) or a (around) then the construct

• ci change inside whatever. whaterver could be quotes, single or double, brakets, round, square or curly
• ci' changes inside quotes
• ci( changes inside round brackets
• ci[ changes inside square brackets
• ci{ changes inside curly brackets
• ciw changes in word will delete the whole word the cursor is on, and switch to insert
• caw changes all word (includes whitespaces within double "
• di' deletes a single-quoted string, leaving the single quotation marks
• da' deletes a single-quoted string, including the quotation marks
• di[ deletes all stuff in the square brakets []
• da[ deletes all stuff in the square brakets [] including the brakets
• di{ deletes all stuff in the square brakets {}
• da{ deletes all stuff in the square brakets {} including the brakets
• di( deletes the contents inside the parenthesis ()
• da( deletes the contents and around or including the parenthesis ()
• yi) yanks everything inside the parenthesis
• ya" yanks everything withing the dirks, including the dirks
• yi} yanks everything inside the curly brackets.

Blow your mind time… You DON'T have to be within the construct for this technique to work. VIM will find the first occurance of that construct on the current line, and operate on it.

That bears repeating. VIM will find the first occurance of that construct oin the current line, and operate on it.

Practice changing the string inside each of these constructs:

first word second word { string } last word
first word second word ( string ) last word
first word second word " string " last word
first word second word ' string ' last word
first word second word {(" it ")} last word

~/.vimrc has startup settings. There are plenty. For instance here is my .vimrc file:

" Comments in Vimscript start with a `"`.

" If you open this file in Vim, it'll be syntax highlighted for you.

" Vim is based on Vi. Setting `nocompatible` switches from the default
" Vi-compatibility mode and enables useful Vim functionality. This
" configuration option turns out not to be necessary for the file named
" '~/.vimrc', because Vim automatically enters nocompatible mode if that file
" is present. But we're including it here just in case this config file is
" loaded some other way (e.g. saved as `foo`, and then Vim started with
" `vim -u foo`).
set nocompatible

" Turn on syntax highlighting.
syntax on

" Disable the default Vim startup message.
set shortmess+=I

" Show line numbers.
set number

" This enables relative line numbering mode. With both number and
" relativenumber enabled, the current line shows the true line number, while
" all other lines (above and below) are numbered relative to the current line.
" This is useful because you can tell, at a glance, what count is needed to
" jump up or down to a particular line, by {count}k to go up or {count}j to go
" down.
set relativenumber

" Always show the status line at the bottom, even if you only have one window open.
set laststatus=2

" The backspace key has slightly unintuitive behavior by default. For example,
" by default, you can't backspace before the insertion point set with 'i'.
" This configuration makes backspace behave more reasonably, in that you can
" backspace over anything.
set backspace=indent,eol,start

" By default, Vim doesn't let you hide a buffer (i.e. have a buffer that isn't
" shown in any window) that has unsaved changes. This is to prevent you from "
" forgetting about unsaved changes and then quitting e.g. via `:qa!`. We find
" hidden buffers helpful enough to disable this protection. See `:help hidden`
" for more information on this.
set hidden

" This setting makes search case-insensitive when all characters in the string
" being searched are lowercase. However, the search becomes case-sensitive if
" it contains any capital letters. This makes searching more convenient.
set ignorecase
set smartcase

" Enable searching as you type, rather than waiting till you press enter.
set incsearch

" Unbind some useless/annoying default key bindings.
nmap Q <Nop> " 'Q' in normal mode enters Ex mode. You almost never want this.

" Disable audible bell because it's annoying.
set noerrorbells visualbell t_vb=

" Enable mouse support. You should avoid relying on this too much, but it can
" sometimes be convenient.
set mouse+=a

" Since I am also an emacs user, I prefer to use the arrow keys.  Therefore
" I will NOT follow the advice below, and allow arrow keys for movement
"
" Users for whom vi or vim is their preferred editor, read on, and uncomment
" as needed:
" Try to prevent bad habits like using the arrow keys for movement. This is
" not the only possible bad habit. For example, holding down the h/j/k/l keys
" for movement, rather than using more efficient movement commands, is also a
" bad habit. The former is enforceable through a .vimrc, while we don't know
" how to prevent the latter.
" Do this in normal mode...
" nnoremap <Left>  :echoe "Use h"<CR>
" nnoremap <Right> :echoe "Use l"<CR>
" nnoremap <Up>    :echoe "Use k"<CR>
" nnoremap <Down>  :echoe "Use j"<CR>
" ...and in insert mode
" inoremap <Left>  <ESC>:echoe "Use h"<CR>
" inoremap <Right> <ESC>:echoe "Use l"<CR>
" inoremap <Up>    <ESC>:echoe "Use k"<CR>
" inoremap <Down>  <ESC>:echoe "Use j"<CR>

colorscheme desert