1. CS 497C – Introduction to UNIX Lecture 9: The vi/vim Editor Chin-Chih Chang chang@cs.twsu.edu

2. Navigation You can use the cursor motion keys (arrow keys) to move around the screen. But some terminals don’t recognize these keys. vi has its own set of commands that move the cursor: –h – moves cursor left. –l – moves cursor right. –k – moves cursor up. –j – moves cursor down.

3. Navigation You can use the control keys to change the view of displayed text on your window. The four essential scrolling commands are: –[Ctrl-f] – Scrolls full page forward. –[Ctrl-b] - Scrolls full page backward. –[Ctrl-d] - Scrolls half page forward. –[Ctrl-u] - Scrolls half page backward. –[Ctrl-l] – Redraws the screen.

4. Navigation Precise navigation commands in vi are: –b – moves back to beginning of word. –e – moves forward to end of word. –w – moves forward to beginning of word. –0 or | - moves to beginning of line. –$ - moves to end of line. –1G – moves to beginning of file. –G – moves to end of file.

5. Operators vi operators are commands for modifying the content of a buffer. These are operators to be remembered: –d – delete –y – yank (copy) –p – put back deleted/yanked text –c – change –! – filter to act on text These operators perform function in a combination with a command.

6. Deleting, Moving, and Yanking Text These are commands for deleting text: –x – deletes character under cursor. –X – deletes previous character. –d$ or D – deletes from cursor to end of line. –dd – deletes current line. –dG – deletes till end of file. –dw – deletes current word.

7. Deleting, Moving, and Yanking Text These are commands for moving/putting back text: –J – joins current line with next line. –p – puts deleted/copied text below current line or on right of cursor. –P - puts deleted/copied text above current line or on left of cursor. These are commands for yanking text: –yy or Y – yanks current line. –y$ - yanks from cursor to end of line. –yw – copies current word.

8. Changing Text (c and ~) These are commands for changing text: –c0 – changes from cursor to beginning of line. –c$ or C – changes from cursor to end of line. –cw – changes current word. –cc – changes current line. –cG – changes from cursor to end of file. –~ - reverses case of character under cursor.

9. Repeating and Undoing Last Editing Instructions To repeat the last command, use. (dot). To undo last commands, use: –u – undoes last editing instruction. –U – undoes all changes made in current line. –[Ctrl-r] – redoes previous undo actions (Linux only).