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 line
gg
move the cursor to the begining of the file
L
move the cursor to the end of the file
: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
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 versio