Since the 70′s, vi and vim are very popular text editors among programmers. 5 years ago, I wrote an article named “100 vim commands every programmer should know” and here is a reworked, updated version. Enjoy!
Basics
:e filename
Open filename for edition
:w
Save file
:q
Exit Vim
:q!
Quit without saving
:x
Write file (if changes has been made) and exit
:sav filename
Saves file as filename
.
Repeats the last change made in normal mode
5.
Repeats 5 times the last change made in normal mode
Moving in the 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 line 59. Replace 59 by the desired line number.
20|
move cursor to column 20.
%
Move cursor to matching parenthesis
[[
Jump to function start
[{
Jump to block start
Cut, copy & 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
Search word from top to bottom
?word
Search word from bottom to top
*
Search the word under cursor
/\cstring
Search STRING or string, case insensitive
/jo[ha]n
Search john or joan
/\< the
Search the, theatre or then
/the\>
Search the or breathe
/\< the\>
Search the
/\< ¦.\>
Search all words of 4 letters
/\/
Search fred but not alfred or frederick
/fred\|joe
Search fred or joe
/\<\d\d\d\d\>
Search exactly 4 digits
/^\n\{3}
Find 3 empty lines
:bufdo /searchstr/
Search in all open files
bufdo %s/something/somethingelse/g
Search something in all the open buffers and replace it with somethingelse
Replace
:%s/old/new/g
Replace all occurences of old by new in file
:%s/onward/forward/gi
Replace onward by forward, case unsensitive
:%s/old/new/gc
Replace all occurences with confirmation
:2,35s/old/new/g
Replace all occurences between lines 2 and 35
:5,$s/old/new/g
Replace all occurences from line 5 to EOF
:%s/^/hello/g
Replace the begining of each line by hello
:%s/$/Harry/g
Replace the end of each line by Harry
:%s/onward/forward/gi
Replace onward by forward, case unsensitive
:%s/ *$//g
Delete all white spaces
:g/string/d
Delete all lines containing string
:v/string/d
Delete all lines containing which didn’t contain string
:s/Bill/Steve/
Replace the first occurence of Bill by Steve in current line
:s/Bill/Steve/g
Replace Bill by Steve in current line
:%s/Bill/Steve/g
Replace Bill by Steve in all the file
:%s/^M//g
Delete DOS carriage returns (^M)
:%s/\r/\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+a
Increment number under the cursor
Ctrl+x
Decrement number under cursor
ggVGg?
Change text to Rot13
Case
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 excepted 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
:1,10 w outfile
Saves lines 1 to 10 in outfile
:1,10 w >> outfile
Appends lines 1 to 10 to outfile
:r infile
Insert the content of infile
:23r infile
Insert the content of infile under line 23
File explorer
:e .
Open integrated file explorer
:Sex
Split window and open integrated file explorer
:Sex!
Same as :Sex but 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 contening expression
gf
Open file name under cursor
Interact with Unix
:!pwd
Execute the pwd unix command, then returns to Vi
!!pwd
Execute the pwd unix command and insert output in file
