Mastering
the VI editor
University
of Hawaii at Manoa
College of Engineering
The VI editor is a
screen-based editor used by many Unix users. The VI editor
has powerful features to aid programmers, but many
beginning users avoid using VI because the different
features overwhelm them. This tutorial is written to help
beginning users get accustomed to using the VI editor, but
also contains sections relevant to regular users of VI as
well. Examples are provided, and the best way to learn is
to try these examples, and think of your own examples as
well... There's no better way than to experience things
yourself.
In this tutorial, the
following convention will be used:
^X denotes a
control character. For example, if you see: ^d in
the tutorial, that means you hold down the control key and
then type the corresponding letter. For this example, you
would hold down the control key and then type d.
The VI editor uses the
full screen, so it needs to know what kind of terminal you
have. When you log in, wiliki should ask you what terminal
you have. The prompt looks like this:
TERM = (vt100)
If you know your terminal
is a vt100 (or an emulator that can do vt100), just hit
return for the terminal type when you log in. If you have
an hp terminal, type "hp"
for the terminal type and hit return. If you are not sure
what kind of terminal you have, ask a lab monitor, or have
someone help you set the correct terminal type.
If you make an error when
you log in and type the wrong terminal type, don't panic
and log out. You can type the following commands to fix
the settings:
First, tell your shell
what type of terminal you have. (If you're not sure what
your shell is, type this command to see what shell you
have:
echo $SHELL.)
For the examples given, the terminal type is "vt100".
Substitute it with whatever terminal type you have. For
C shell (/bin/csh), the command is this:
set term=vt100
For Bourne Shell (/bin/sh)
or Korn Shell (/bin/ksh), the commands are the
following:
export TERM
TERM=vt100
Next, reset your
terminal with this command:
tset
Now that the terminal
type is (hopefully) correctly set, you are ready to get
started with VI.
The VI editor lets a user
create new files or edit existing files. The command to
start the VI editor is
vi,
followed by the filename. For example, to edit a file
called temporary, you would type
vi temporary
and then return. You can start VI without a filename, but
when you want to save your work, you will have to tell VI
which filename to save it into later.
When you start VI for the
first time, you will see a screen filled with tildes (A
tilde looks like this: ~) on the left side of the screen.
Any blank lines beyond the end of the file are shown this
way. At the bottom of your screen, the filename should be
shown, if you specified an existing file, and the size of
the file will be shown as well, like this:
"filename" 21 lines, 385 characters
If the file you specified
does not exist, then it will tell you that it is a new
file, like this:
"newfile" [New file]
If you started VI without
a filename, the bottom line of the screen will just be
blank when VI starts. If the screen does not show you
these expected results, your terminal type may be set
wrong. Just type
:q
and return to get out of VI, and fix
your terminal type. If you don't know how, ask a lab
monitor.
Now that you know how to
get into VI, it would be a good idea to know how to get
out of it. The VI editor has two modes
and in order to get out of VI, you have to be in
command mode. Hit the key labeled "Escape" or "Esc"
(If your terminal does not have such a key, then try ^[,
or control-[.) to get into command mode. If you
were already in the command mode when you hit "Escape",
don't worry. It might beep, but you will still be in the
command mode.
The command to quit out
of VI is :q.
Once in command mode, type colon, and 'q', followed
by return. If your file has been modified in any way, the
editor will warn you of this, and not let you quit. To
ignore this message, the command to quit out of VI without
saving is :q!.
This lets you exit VI without saving any of the changes.
Of course, normally in an
editor, you would want to save the changes you have made.
The command to save the contents of the editor is
:w.
You can combine the above command with the quit command,
or :wq.
You can specify a different file name to save to by
specifying the name after the
:w.
For example, if you wanted to save the file you were
working as another filename called filename2, you
would type: w filename2
and return.
Another way to save your
changes and exit out of VI is the
ZZ
command. When in command mode, type
ZZ
and it will do the equivalent of
:wq.
If any changes were made to the file, it will be saved.
This is the easiest way to leave the editor, with only two
keystrokes.
The first thing most
users learn about the VI editor is that it has two modes:
command and insert. The command mode
allows the entry of commands to manipulate text. These
commands are usually one or two characters long, and can
be entered with few keystrokes. The insert mode
puts anything typed on the keyboard into the current file.
VI starts out in
command mode. There are several commands that put the
VI editor into insert mode. The most commonly used
commands to get into insert mode are
a
and i.
These two commands are described below. Once you are in
insert mode, you get out of it by hitting the
escape key. If your terminal does not have an
escape key, ^[ should work (control-[). You can hit
escape two times in a row and VI would definitely be in
command mode. Hitting escape while you are
already in command mode doesn't take the editor out
of command mode. It may beep to tell you that you
are already in that mode.
The command mode commands
are normally in this format: (Optional arguments are given
in the brackets)
Most commands are one
character long, including those which use control
characters. The commands described in this section are
those which are used most commonly the VI editor.
The count is
entered as a number beginning with any character from 1 to
9. For example, the
x
command deletes a character under the cursor. If you type
23x
while in command mode, it will delete 23
characters.
Some commands use an
optional where parameter, where you can specify how
many lines or how much of the document the command
affects, the where parameter can also be any
command that moves the cursor.
Here is a simple set of
commands to get a beginning VI user started. There are
many other convenient commands, which will be discussed in
later sections.
- a
- enter insert
mode, the characters typed in will be inserted after the
current cursor position. If you specify a count, all the
text that had been inserted will be repeated that many
times.
- h
- move the cursor to the
left one character position.
- i
- enter insert
mode, the characters typed in will be inserted before
the current cursor position. If you specify a count, all
the text that had been inserted will be repeated that
many times.
- j
- move the cursor down
one line.
- k
- move the cursor up one
line.
- l
- move the cursor to the
right one character position.
- r
- replace one character
under the cursor. Specify count to replace a
number of characters
- u
- undo the last change
to the file. Typing
u
again will re-do the change.
- x
- delete character under
the cursor. Count specifies how many characters
to delete. The characters will be deleted after the
cursor.
The VI editor has 36
buffers for storing pieces of text, and also a general
purpose buffer. Any time a block of text is deleted or
yanked from the file, it gets placed into the general
purpose buffer. Most users of VI rarely use the other
buffers, and can get along without the other buffers. The
block of text is also stored in another buffer as well, if
it is specified. The buffer is specified using the
"
command. After typing ",
a letter or digit specifying the buffer must be entered.
For example, the command:
"mdd uses the buffer m,
and the last two characters stand for delete current line.
Similarly, text can be pasted in with the
p or
P
command. "mp
pastes the contents of buffer m after the current
cursor position. For any of the commands used in the next
two sections, these buffers can be specified for temporary
storage of words or paragraphs.
The command commonly used
command for cutting is
d.
This command deletes text from the file. The command is
preceded by an optional count and followed by a
movement specification. If you double the command by
typing dd,
it deletes the current line. Here are some combinations of
these:
- d^
- deletes from current
cursor position to the beginning of the line.
- d$
- deletes from current
cursor position to the end of the line.
- dw
- deletes from current
cursor position to the end of the word.
- 3dd
- deletes three lines
from current cursor position downwards.
There is also the
y
command which operates similarly to the
d
command which take text from the file without deleting the
text.
The commands to paste are
p
and P.
The only differ in the position relative to the cursor
where they paste. p
pastes the specified or general buffer after the cursor
position, while P
pastes the specified or general buffer before the cursor
position. Specifying count before the paste command
pastes text the specified number of times.
The VI editor has
features to help programmers format their code neatly.
There is a variable that to set up the indentation for
each level of nesting in code. In order to set it up, see
the customization section of this
tutorial. For example, the command to set the shift width
to 4 characters is
:set sw=4.
The following commands
indent your lines or remove the indentation, and can be
specified with count:
- <<
- Shifts the current
line to the left by one shift width.
- >>
- Shifts the current
line to the right by one shift width.
The VI editor also has a
helpful feature which checks your source code for any
hanging parentheses or braces. The
%
command will look for the left parenthesis or brace
corresponding to a particular right parenthesis or brace
and vice versa. Place the cursor onto a parenthesis or
brace and type % to move the cursor to the
corresponding parenthesis or brace. This is useful to
check for unclosed parentheses or braces. If a parenthesis
or brace exists without a matching parenthesis or brace,
VI will beep at you to indicate that no matching symbol
was found.
The VI editor has two
kinds of searches: string and character. For a string
search, the
/
and ?
commands are used. When you start these commands, the
command just typed will be shown on the bottom line, where
you type the particular string to look for. These two
commands differ only in the direction where the search
takes place. The /
command searches forwards (downwards) in the file, while
the ?
command searches backwards (upwards) in the file. The
n
and N
commands repeat the previous search command in the same or
opposite direction, respectively. Some characters have
special meanings to VI, so they must be preceded by a
backslash (\) to be included as part of the search
expression.
Special characters:
- ^
- Beginning of the line.
(At the beginning of a search expression.)
- .
- Matches a single
character.
- *
- Matches zero or more
of the previous character.
- $
- End of the line (At
the end of the search expression.)
- [
- Starts a set of
matching, or non-matching expressions... For example: /f[iae]t
matches either of these: fit fat fet In this form, it
matches anything except these: /a[^bcd] will not match
any of these, but anything with an a and another letter:
ab ac ad
- <
- Put in an expression
escaped with the backslash to find the ending or
beginning of a word. For example: /\<the\> should find
only word the, but not words like these: there and
other.
- >
- See the '<' character
description above.
The character search
searches within one line to find a character entered after
the command. The
f
and F
commands search for a character on the current line only.
f
searches forwards and F
searches backwards and the cursor moves to the position of
the found character.
The
t
and T
commands search for a character on the current line only,
but for t,
the cursor moves to the position before the character, and
T
searches the line backwards to the position after the
character.
These two sets of
commands can be repeated using the
;
or ,
command, where ;
repeats the last character search command in the same
direction, while ,
repeats the command in the reverse direction.
You can customize the way
VI behaves upon start up. There are several edit options
which are available using the :set command, these are the
VI and EX editor options available on Wiliki: (You can get
this list by typing
:set all
and then return in command mode)
noautoindent magic noshowmatch autoprint mesg
noshowmode noautowrite nomodelines noslowopen nobeautify
nonumber tabstop=8 directory=/tmp nonovice taglength=0
nodoubleescape nooptimize tags=tags /usr/lib/tags
noedcompatible paragraphs=IPLPPPQPP LIpplpipnpbp term=xterm
noerrorbells prompt noterse noexrc noreadonly timeout
flash redraw timeoutlen=500 hardtabs=8 remap ttytype=xterm
noignorecase report=5 warn keyboardedit scroll=11
window=23 keyboardedit! sections=NHSHH HUuhsh+c wrapscan
nolisp shell=/bin/csh wrapmargin=0 nolist shiftwidth=8
nowriteany
Some of these options
have values set with the equals sign '=' in it, while
others are either set or not set. (These on or off type of
options are called Boolean, and have "no" in front
of them to indicate that they are not set.) The options
shown here are the options that are set without any
customization. Descriptions of some of these are given
below, with an abbreviation. For example, the command set
autoindent, you can type
:set autoindent
or :set ai.
To unset it, you can type
:set noautoindent or
:set noai.
- autoindent (ai)
- This option sets the
editor so that lines following an indented line will
have the same indentation as the previous line. If you
want to back over this indentation, you can type
^D
at the very first character position. This
^D
works in the insert mode, and not in command
mode. Also, the width of the indentations can be set
with shiftwidth, explained below.
- exrc
- The .exrc file
in the current directory is read during startup. This
has to be set either in the environment variable
EXINIT or in the .exrc file in your home
directory.
- mesg
- Turn off messages if
this option is unset using
:set nomesg,
so that nobody can bother you while using the editor.
- number (nu)
- Displays lines with
line numbers on the left side.
- shiftwidth (sw)
- This option takes a
value, and determines the width of a software tabstop.
(The software tabstop is used for the
<<
and >>
commands.) For example, you would set a shift width of 4
with this command: :set
sw=4.
- showmode (smd)
- This option is used to
show the actual mode of the editor that you are in. If
you are in insert mode, the bottom line of the
screen will say INPUT MODE.
- warn
- This option warns you
if you have modified the file, but haven't saved it yet.
- window (wi)
- This option sets up
the number of lines on the window that VI uses. For
example, to set the VI editor to use only 12 lines of
your screen (because your modem is slow) you would use
this:
:set wi=12.
- wrapscan (ws)
- This option affects
the behavior of the word search. If
wrapscan
is set, if the word is not found at the bottom of the
file, it will try to search for it at the beginning.
- wrapmargin (wm)
- If this option has a
value greater than zero, the editor will automatically
"word wrap". That is, if you get to within that many
spaces of the left margin, the word will wrap to the
next line, without having to type return. For example,
to set the wrap margin to two characters, you would type
this:
:set wm=2.
One EX editor command
that is useful in the VI editor is the abbreviate
command. This lets you set up abbreviations for specific
strings. The command looks like this:
:ab string thing
to substitute for. For
example, if you had to type the name, "Humuhumunukunukuapua`a"
but you didn't want to type the whole name, you could use
an abbreviation for it. For this example, the command is
entered like this:
:ab 9u
Humuhumunukunukuapua`a
Now, whenever you type 9u
as a separate word, VI will type in the entire word(s)
specified. If you typed in 9university, it will not
substitute the word.
To remove a previously
defined abbreviation, the command is unabbreviate. To
remove the previous example, the command would be ":una
9u" To get your listing of abbreviations, simply just type
:ab without any definitions.
Another EX editor command
that is useful for customization is the mapping command.
There are two kinds of mapping commands. One for command
mode, and the other for insert mode. These two commands
are :map
and :map!
respectively. The mapping works similarly to the
abbreviation, and you give it a key sequence and give it
another key sequence to substitute it with. (The
substituted key sequences are usually VI commands.)
There are two ways to
customize the VI editor. If you create a file called .exrc
in your home directory, all the commands in there will be
read when VI starts up. The other method is to set an
environment variable called EXINIT. The options
will be set in your shell's setup file. If you use /bin/csh
(C-Shell), the command is as follows, and is put in the
.cshrc file:
setenv EXINIT '...'
If you use /bin/sh or
/bin/ksh, the command is as follows, and is put into the
.profile file:
export EXINIT
EXINIT='...'
Don't put in ... as the
example says. In this space put the commands that you want
to set up. For example, if you want to have auto indent,
line numbering, and the wrap margin of three characters,
then the setenv command (for C shell) looks like this:
setenv EXINIT 'set ai nu wm=3'
If you want to put more
than one command in the
setenv EXINIT
thing, separate the commands with a vertical bar (|). For
example, to map the 'g' command to the 'G' character in
command mode, the command is
:map g G,
and combined with the above command, you get this:
setenv EXINIT 'set ai nu wm=3|map g G'
If you want to create the
file called .exrc, you can put exactly the same
things in the file as shown in the quotes after the
EXINIT.
The VI editor edits a
temporary copy of your file, and after the editing is
complete, or when you tell it to save, it puts the
contents of the temporary copy into the original file. If
something goes wrong while you are editing your file, the
VI editor will attempt to save whatever work you had in
progress, and store it for later recovery. (Note: If VI
dies while you were working on any file, it sends you an
email message on how to recover it. The -r option
stands for recovery. If you were editing the file
vitalinfo, and you accidentally got logged out, then
the -r option of the 'vi' editor should help. The
command would look somewhat like this:
vi -r vitalinfo
After using the -r option once, though, you MUST
save what you have recovered to the actual file... The
-r option only works once per failed VI session.
There are two things to
be aware of when using the workstations: Editing the same
file many times at once, and changing the size of the
screen.
Because VI edits a copy
of your original file and saves the contents of that copy
into the original file, if you are logged on more than
once and are editing the same file more than once using
VI, if you save on one window and then you save on the
other window, the changes made to the file on the first
save would be overwritten. Make sure that you only run one
copy of VI per file.
If you use a terminal
program from a workstation, you can change the size of the
screen by dragging the sides of the window. If the size is
not working properly, the command to type is this:
eval `resize`
If that doesn't work the
command would be this:
eval `/usr/bin/X11/resize`
If the size is wrong, the
editor will not operate correctly. If you have any
problems with the screen size, ask the monitors in the
computer lab for help setting the sizes correctly.
This list is a summary of
VI commands, categorized by function. There may be other
commands available, so check the on-line manual on VI. For
easy reference, you can save this file as text and delete
any commands you don't think you would use and print out
the resulting shorter file.
- "
- Specify a buffer to be
used any of the commands using buffers. Follow the "
with a letter or a number, which corresponds to a
buffer.
- D
- Delete to the end of
the line from the current cursor position.
- P
- Paste the specified
buffer before the current cursor position or line. If no
buffer is specified (with the " command.) then 'P' uses
the general buffer.
- X
- Delete the character
before the cursor.
- Y
- Yank the current line
into the specified buffer. If no buffer is specified,
then the general buffer is used.
- d
- Delete until where.
"dd" deletes the current line. A count deletes that many
lines. Whatever is deleted is placed into the buffer
specified with the " command. If no buffer is specified,
then the general buffer is used.
- p
- Paste the specified
buffer after the current cursor position or line. If no
buffer is specified (with the " command.) then 'p' uses
the general buffer.
- x
- Delete character under
the cursor. A count tells how many characters to delete.
The characters will be deleted after the cursor.
- y
- Yank until
, putting the result into a buffer. "yy" yanks
the current line. a count yanks that many lines. The
buffer can be specified with the " command. If no buffer
is specified, then the general buffer is used.
- A
- Append at the end of
the current line.
- I
- Insert from the
beginning of a line.
- O
- (letter oh) Enter
insert mode in a new line above the current cursor
position.
- a
- Enter insert
mode, the characters typed in will be inserted after the
current cursor position. A count inserts all the text
that had been inserted that many times.
- i
- Enter insert
mode, the characters typed in will be inserted before
the current cursor position. A count inserts all the
text that had been inserted that many times.
- o
- Enter insert
mode in a new line below the current cursor position.
- ^B
- Scroll backwards one
page. A count scrolls that many pages.
- ^D
- Scroll forwards half a
window. A count scrolls that many lines.
- ^F
- Scroll forwards one
page. A count scrolls that many pages.
- ^H
- Move the cursor one
space to the left. A count moves that many spaces.
- ^J
- Move the cursor down
one line in the same column. A count moves that many
lines down.
- ^M
- Move to the first
character on the next line.
- ^N
- Move the cursor down
one line in the same column. A count moves that many
lines down.
- ^P
- Move the cursor up one
line in the same column. A count moves that many lines
up.
- ^U
- Scroll backwards half
a window. A count scrolls that many lines.
- $
- Move the cursor to the
end of the current line. A count moves to the end of the
following lines.
- %
- Move the cursor to the
matching parenthesis or brace.
- ^
- Move the cursor to the
first non-whitespace character.
- (
- Move the cursor to the
beginning of a sentence.
- )
- Move the cursor to the
beginning of the next sentence.
- {
- Move the cursor to the
preceding paragraph.
- }
- Move the cursor to the
next paragraph.
- |
- Move the cursor to the
column specified by the count.
- +
- Move the cursor to the
first non-whitespace character in the next line.
- -
- Move the cursor to the
first non-whitespace character in the previous line.
- _
- Move the cursor to the
first non-whitespace character in the current line.
- 0
- (Zero) Move the cursor
to the first column of the current line.
- B
- Move the cursor back
one word, skipping over punctuation.
- E
- Move forward to the
end of a word, skipping over punctuation.
- G
- Go to the line number
specified as the count. If no count is given, then go to
the end of the file.
- H
- Move the cursor to the
first non-whitespace character on the top of the screen.
- L
- Move the cursor to the
first non-whitespace character on the bottom of the
screen.
- M
- Move the cursor to the
first non-whitespace character on the middle of the
screen.
- W
- Move forward to the
beginning of a word, skipping over punctuation.
- b
- Move the cursor back
one word. If the cursor is in the middle of a word, move
the cursor to the first character of that word.
- e
- Move the cursor
forward one word. If the cursor is in the middle of a
word, move the cursor to the last character of that
word.
- h
- Move the cursor to the
left one character position.
- j
- Move the cursor down
one line.
- k
- Move the cursor up one
line.
- l
- Move the cursor to the
right one character position.
- w
- Move the cursor
forward one word. If the cursor is in the middle of a
word, move the cursor to the first character of the next
word.
- ^E
- Scroll forwards one
line. A count scrolls that many lines.
- ^Y
- Scroll backwards one
line. A count scrolls that many lines.
- z
- Redraw the screen with
the following options. "z<return>" puts the current line
on the top of the screen; "z." puts the current line on
the center of the screen; and "z-" puts the current line
on the bottom of the screen. If you specify a count
before the 'z' command, it changes the current line to
the line specified. For example, "16z." puts line 16 on
the center of the screen.
- C
- Change to the end of
the line from the current cursor position.
- R
- Replace characters on
the screen with a set of characters entered, ending with
the Escape key.
- S
- Change an entire line.
- c
- Change until
. "cc" changes the current line. A count
changes that many lines.
- r
- Replace one character
under the cursor. Specify a count to replace a number of
characters.
- s
- Substitute one
character under the cursor, and go into insert mode.
Specify a count to substitute a number of characters. A
dollar sign ($) will be put at the last character to be
substituted.
- ,
- Repeat the last f, F,
t or T command in the reverse direction.
- /
- Search the file
downwards for the string specified after the /.
- ;
- Repeat the last f, F,
t or T command.
- ?
- Search the file
upwards for the string specified after the ?.
- F
- Search the current
line backwards for the character specified after the 'F'
command. If found, move the cursor to the position.
- N
- Repeat the last search
given by '/' or '?', except in the reverse direction.
- T
- Search the current
line backwards for the character specified after the 'T'
command, and move to the column after the if it's found.
- f
- Search the current
line for the character specified after the 'f' command.
If found, move the cursor to the position.
- n
- Repeat last search
given by '/' or '?'.
- t
- Search the current
line for the character specified after the 't' command,
and move to the column before the character if it's
found.
- ~
- Switch the case of the
character under the cursor.
- <
- Shift the lines up to
where to the left by one shiftwidth. "<<" shifts
the current line to the left, and can be specified with
a count.
- >
- Shift the lines up to
where to the right by one shiftwidth. ">>" shifts
the current line to the right, and can be specified with
a count.
- J
- Join the current line
with the next one. A count joins that many lines.
- ^\
- Quit out of "VI" mode
and go into "EX" mode. The EX editor is the line editor
VI is build upon. The EX command to get back into VI is
":vi".
- Q
- Quit out of "VI" mode
and go into "EX" mode. The ex editor is a line-by-line
editor. The EX command to get back into VI is ":vi".
- ZZ
- Exit the editor,
saving if any changes were made.
- ^G
- Show the current
filename and the status.
- ^L
- Clear and redraw the
screen.
- ^R
- Redraw the screen
removing false lines.
- ^[
- Escape key. Cancels
partially formed command.
- ^^
- Go back to the last
file edited.
- !
- Execute a shell. If a
is specified, the program which is executed
using ! uses the specified line(s) as standard input,
and will replace those lines with the standard output of
the program executed. "!!" executes a program using the
current line as input. For example, "!4jsort" will take
five lines from the current cursor position and execute
sort. After typing the command, there will be a single
exclamation point where you can type the command in.
- &
- Repeat the previous
":s" command.
- .
- Repeat the last
command that modified the file.
- :
- Begin typing an EX
editor command. The command is executed once the user
types return. (See section below.)
- @
- Type the command
stored in the specified buffer.
- U
- Restore the current
line to the state it was in before the cursor entered
the line.
- m
- Mark the current
position with the character specified after the 'm'
command.
- u
- Undo the last change
to the file. Typing 'u' again will re-do the change.
The VI editor is built
upon another editor, called EX. The EX editor only edits
by line. From the VI editor you use the : command to start
entering an EX command. This list given here is not
complete, but the commands given are the more commonly
used. If more than one line is to be modified by certain
commands (such as ":s" and ":w" ) the range must be
specified before the command. For example, to substitute
lines 3 through 15, the command is ":3,15s/from/this/g".
- :ab string strings
- Abbreviation. If a
word is typed in VI corresponding to string1, the editor
automatically inserts the corresponding words. For
example, the abbreviation ":ab usa United States of
America" would insert the words, "United States of
America" whenever the word "usa" is typed in.
- :map keys new_seq
- Mapping. This lets you
map a key or a sequence of keys to another key or a
sequence of keys.
- :q
- Quit VI. If there have
been changes made, the editor will issue a warning
message.
- :q!
- Quit VI without saving
changes.
- :s/pattern/to_pattern/options
- Substitute. This
substitutes the specified pattern with the string in the
to_pattern. Without options, it only substitutes the
first occurence of the pattern. If a 'g' is specified,
then all occurences are substituted. For example, the
command ":1,$s/Dwayne/Dwight/g" substitutes all
occurences of "Dwayne" to "Dwight".
- :set [all]
- Sets some customizing
options to VI and EX. The ":set all" command gives all
the possible options. (See the section on customizing VI
for some options.)
- :una string
- Removes the
abbreviation previously defined by ":ab".
- :unm keys
- Removes the remove
mapping defined by ":map".
- :vi filename
- Starts editing a new
file. If changes have not been saved, the editor will
give you a warning.
- :w
- Write out the current
file.
- :w filename
- Write the buffer to
the filename specified.
- :w >> filename
- Append the contents of
the buffer to the filename.
- :wq
- Write the buffer and
quit.
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