Vim – Vi Improved, a Programmers Text Editor

Introduction Getting started with vim Tasks Search and replace Conﬁguration

vim – Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor

Bart Van Loon

31st January 2012

1 / 30 Bart Van Loon vim – Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor Introduction Getting started with vim Tasks Search and replace Conﬁguration

1 Introduction

2 Getting started with vim Introduction Starting and quitting The cursor Editing text

3 Tasks

4 Search and replace

5 Conﬁguration

2 / 30 Bart Van Loon vim – Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor Introduction Getting started with vim Tasks Search and replace Conﬁguration How it all began: vi A part of history

I text editor originally created for UNIX

I old: ﬁrst release in 1976 (Open Source: BSD license)

I but modern: 2009 survey by Linux Journal → vi[m] most widely used text editor (36%); second place: gedit (19%)

3 / 30 Bart Van Loon vim – Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor Introduction Getting started with vim Tasks Search and replace Conﬁguration How it all began: vi Modal editor

I vi is a modal editor: insert mode: typed text becomes part of the document normal mode: keystrokes are interpreted as commands

I i in normal mode: switch to insert mode; i again at this point: place an “i” character in the document

I esc in insert mode: switch to normal mode

I advantage: both text editing and command operations without requiring removal of hands from the home row ⇒ speed!

4 / 30 Bart Van Loon vim – Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor Introduction Getting started with vim Tasks Search and replace Conﬁguration How it all began: vi It breaks my ﬁngers!

Many ideas, shortcuts, keystrokes, . . . can be explained by looking at a common computer keyboard from the seventies.

5 / 30 Bart Van Loon vim – Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor Introduction Getting started with vim Tasks Search and replace Conﬁguration How it all began: vi Contemporary derivatives and clones

vi: traditional vi ported to modern systems vim: (“Vi IMproved”) vi with many more features elvis: once popular clone with some extra features nvi: default derivative shipped with all BSDs vile: attempt to mix emacs and vi ...

6 / 30 Bart Van Loon vim – Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor Introduction Introduction Getting started with vim Starting and quitting Tasks The cursor Search and replace Editing text Conﬁguration vim Introduction

I ﬁrst released publicly in 1991 (Open Source charityware)

I still actively developed and maintained

I cross platform

I additional features speciﬁcally designed for editing source code

I customisable through plugins and vimscript

I described as “very much compatible with vi”, but not 100%

I huge community constantly at war with the emacs-community

7 / 30 Bart Van Loon vim – Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor Introduction Introduction Getting started with vim Starting and quitting Tasks The cursor Search and replace Editing text Conﬁguration vim Sooooooo many features

completion, comparison and merging of files, comprehensive integrated help system, extended regular expressions, scripting languages (both native and through alternative scripting interpreters such as Perl, Python, Ruby, Tcl, etc. . . ) including support for plugins, a graphical user interface, limited integrated development environment-like features, mouse interaction (both with and without the GUI), folding, editing of compressed or archived files in gzip, bzip2, zip, and tar format and files over network protocols such as SSH, FTP, and HTTP, session state preservation, spell checking, split (horizontal and vertical) and tabbed windows, unicode and other multi-language support, syntax highlighting, trans-session command, search and cursor position histories, multiple level undo/redo history which can persist across editing sessions, visual mode, . . .

8 / 30 Bart Van Loon vim – Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor Introduction Introduction Getting started with vim Starting and quitting Tasks The cursor Search and replace Editing text Conﬁguration Getting started

Starting vim

I vim; or

I vim ; or

I vim [options]

One useful option is +, which opens the ﬁle and immediately puts the cursor on line .

9 / 30 Bart Van Loon vim – Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor Introduction Introduction Getting started with vim Starting and quitting Tasks The cursor Search and replace Editing text Conﬁguration Getting started

Modes

I by default you start in normal mode I go to insert mode from normal mode type i to start entering text at the cursor type R to start replacing text at the cursor type o to open a new line at the cursor type O to open a new line above the cursor

I hit esc to enter normal mode

10 / 30 Bart Van Loon vim – Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor Introduction Introduction Getting started with vim Starting and quitting Tasks The cursor Search and replace Editing text Conﬁguration Getting started

Exiting vim

I commands to quit: : x ←- : save and quit : q ←- : just quit : q ! ←- : force quit (without saving!)

I shortcut from normal mode: Z Z : quit and save only if changes were made

11 / 30 Bart Van Loon vim – Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor Introduction Introduction Getting started with vim Starting and quitting Tasks The cursor Search and replace Editing text Conﬁguration Moving the cursor

Relative movements: h : one character left j : one line down k : one line up l : one character right w : one word forward b : one word back

Adding a digit multiplies the movement. Try 5 w , 1 2 k , 2 b ,...

12 / 30 Bart Van Loon vim – Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor Introduction Introduction Getting started with vim Starting and quitting Tasks The cursor Search and replace Editing text Conﬁguration Moving the cursor

Absolute movements in the file: ^ or 0 : beginning of the line $ : end of the line g g : beginning of the file G : end of the file G : line ` . : your last edit

13 / 30 Bart Van Loon vim – Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor Introduction Introduction Getting started with vim Starting and quitting Tasks The cursor Search and replace Editing text Conﬁguration Moving the cursor

Absolute movements in the screen (visible area): H : highest line on the screen M : middle line on the screen L : lowest line on the screen ctrl-f : page (screen) forward ctrl-b : page (screen) backward

14 / 30 Bart Van Loon vim – Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor Introduction Introduction Getting started with vim Starting and quitting Tasks The cursor Search and replace Editing text Conﬁguration Editing text

Inserting text: i : insert text at the cursor a : insert text after the cursor (append) I : insert text at the beginning of the line A : insert text at the end of the line

In insert mode, you can use the arrow keys to navigate the cursor, but often going back to normal mode will be much faster.

15 / 30 Bart Van Loon vim – Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor Introduction Introduction Getting started with vim Starting and quitting Tasks The cursor Search and replace Editing text Conﬁguration Editing text

Deleting text: x : delete character at the cursor (delete) X : delete character before the cursor (backspace)

Replacing text: r : replace the current character with

16 / 30 Bart Van Loon vim – Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor Introduction Introduction Getting started with vim Starting and quitting Tasks The cursor Search and replace Editing text Conﬁguration Visual mode

For selecting areas of text, there is visual mode: v : start visual mode V : start visual line mode ctrl-v : start visual block mode

17 / 30 Bart Van Loon vim – Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor Introduction Introduction Getting started with vim Starting and quitting Tasks The cursor Search and replace Editing text Conﬁguration Operators and motions

Example operators: d : delete y : yank (copy) c : change

Example motions1: $ : to end of line G : to end of ﬁle e : to end of current word

1remember the part on “moving your cursor”? 18 / 30 Bart Van Loon vim – Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor Introduction Introduction Getting started with vim Starting and quitting Tasks The cursor Search and replace Editing text Conﬁguration Combining operators and motions

Combining operators and motions generates some really powerful commands. Some examples are: y $ : copy from the cursor until the end of the line d g g : delete from the cursor until the beginning of the ﬁle

Now lets add counts to increase the power: y 3 k : copy the previous 3 lines d 5 w : delete the next 5 words

19 / 30 Bart Van Loon vim – Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor Introduction Introduction Getting started with vim Starting and quitting Tasks The cursor Search and replace Editing text Conﬁguration More power

Another nice operator: = : ﬁx indenting

Some other nice motions: ( : to the beginning of the current sentence ) : to the beginning of the next sentence % : to the matching bracket, parenthesis, braces, . . .

20 / 30 Bart Van Loon vim – Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor Introduction Introduction Getting started with vim Starting and quitting Tasks The cursor Search and replace Editing text Conﬁguration Double operators

When entering an operator twice, it operates on the complete current line: d d : delete the current line y y : copy the current line ...

21 / 30 Bart Van Loon vim – Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor Introduction Introduction Getting started with vim Starting and quitting Tasks The cursor Search and replace Editing text Conﬁguration The put command

To paste previously deleted or yanked (copied) text: p : put (paste) after the cursor P : put (paste) before the cursor

Some nice usage examples: x p : swap the current character with the next one d d p : swap the current line with the next one 5 p : paste 5 times after the cursor

22 / 30 Bart Van Loon vim – Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor Introduction Getting started with vim Tasks Search and replace Conﬁguration Repeating tasks

Undo and redo:

You can think of each command (combined or not) as a task. . : repeat last task u : undo last task ctrl-r : undo last undo (redo)

Typing text is also a task!

23 / 30 Bart Van Loon vim – Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor Introduction Getting started with vim Tasks Search and replace Conﬁguration Macros

A group of tasks can be recorded as a macro: q : start recording macro with name q : stop recording current macro @ : replay macro with name

24 / 30 Bart Van Loon vim – Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor Introduction Getting started with vim Tasks Search and replace Conﬁguration Search

To start: /

←- : forward search for

←- : backward search for

Afterwards: n : repeat previous search N : repeat previous search in opposite direction

25 / 30 Bart Van Loon vim – Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor Introduction Getting started with vim Tasks Search and replace Conﬁguration Search and replace

Structure of the command: