vi: just the basics

The 10 verses of chapter 0 are:

0:0 starting
0:1 modes
0:2 command
0:3 input
0:4 moving
0:5 editing
0:6 searching
0:7 colon
0:8 ZZ
0:9 wisdom

0:0 You invoke vi by typing vi.

0:1 vi has two modes, input mode and command mode. input mode is where you type stuff, and command mode is where you do stuff with your file (like save it or delete lines). When you start vi, you are in command mode.

0:2 You get from input mode into command mode by pressing the escape key. There is no other way to get from input mode to command mode. If you press escape when you're already in command mode, that's ok. It will just beep at you. Try it! That's how you can check what mode you're in and get out of trouble and stuff. Just press escape!

0:3 You get from command mode to input mode by using any of the several different input commands. The input commands are a, i, o, A, I, and O. There is an important difference between little letters and capital letters - see if you can figure it out. Here's what the input commands do:

a

add text after the current character

i

insert text before the current character

o

open a new line under the current line

A

add text at end of current line

I

insert text at start of current line

O

open a new line above the current line

0:4 In command mode, you can move around, but not in input mode. The important movement commands are h, j, k, and l. Here's what the important movement commands do:

h

move to the left (same as backspace)

j

move down one line

k

move up one line

l

move to the right (same as space)

0:5 In command mode, you can edit your text by deleting and putting text anywhere you want. Here's what some of the editing commands do:

dd

delete the current line

10dd

delete 10 lines: the current line plus the next 9

dw

delete word

x

delete character

u

undo the last text-altering command

p

insert buffer after the current line

P

insert buffer before the current line

0:6 In command mode, you can search for things in your text by typing / followed by what you want to search for. That searches forward. A ? followed by text searches backward. There are a lot of special characters that have special effects in search strings. Some of them are: *, ., [, ], \, ?, ^ and $. They will be explained in LESSON 1. Remember: there are many many more search commands, so don't get discouraged if you can't easily do what you want. These commands will be discussed in LESSON 1.

0:7 In command mode, you can save your current file or edit another one. Commands like these all begin with a colon (:). Here's what some of the colon commands do:

:w arg

write your text to file called arg

:w

write your text using the current file name

:r arg

read the file called arg into your text after current line

:e arg

edit another file called arg

:q

quit (won't work if you've changed but not saved your text)

:q!

quit without saving changes

:wq

write your text to current file name then quit

0:8 In command mode, there is a special command to save and quit. It is not a colon command. It is ZZ. Not zz.

0:9 Always remember: a humble and quiet vi user appears to know more than a pretentious and loud one.

Here endeth the lesson