vi Quick Reference

This table is taken from Sun Microsystems' User's Guide: Getting Started (.

		 Starting vi 

vi filename 		 open or create file 

vi +18 filename 		 open to line 18 

vi +/"mustard" filename 		 open file to first occurence of    ``mustard" 

vi -r filename 		  recover crashed file 

view filename 		 open file read-only 



Cursor Commands 

h 		 move left 

j		 move down 

k 		 move up 

l 		 move down 

w 		 move right one word 

W 		 move right one word (past punctuation) 

b 		 move left one word 

B 		 move left one word (past punctuation) 

Return 		 move down one line 

Back Space 		 move left one character 

Space Bar 		 move right one character 

H 		 move to top screen 

M 		 move to middle of screen 

L 		 move to bottom of screen 

Ctl-F 		 scroll forward one screen 

Ctrl-D 		 scroll forward one-half screen 

Ctrl-B 		 scroll backward one screen 

Ctrl-U 		 scroll backward one-half screen 



Insterting Characters and Lines 

a 		 insert characters to right of cursor 

A 		 insert characters to right of cursor, at end of line 

i 		 insert characters to left of cursor 

I 		 insert characters to left of cursor, at beginning of line 

o 		 insert line below cursor 

O 		 insert line above cursor 



Changing Text 

cw 		 change word (or part of word right of cursor) 

cc 		 change line 

C 		 change part of line to right of cursor 

s 		 substitute string for character under cursor 

r 		 replace character under cursor with one other character 

r-Return 		 break line 

J 		 join current line and line below 

xp 		 transpose character at cursor & character to right 

  		 change case of letter (upper or lower) 

u 		 undo previous command 

U 		 undo all changes to line 

:u 		 undo previous last-line command 



Deleting Text 

x 		 delete character 

dw 		 delete word (or part of word to right of cursor) 

dd 		 delete line 

D 		 delete part of line to right of cursor 

:5,10 d 		 delete lines 5-10 



Copying and Moving Text 

yy 		 yank or copy line 

Y 		 yank or copy line 

dd 		 delete line 

p 		 put yanked or deleted line below current line 

P (upper case) 		 put yanked or deleted line above current line 

:1,2 co 3 		 copy lines 1-2 and put after line 3 

:4,5 m 6 		 move lines 4-5 and put after line 6 



Setting Line Numbers 

:set nu 		 show line numbers 

:set nonu 		 hide line numbers 



Finding a Line 

G 		 go to last line of file 

21G 		 go to line 21 



Searching and Replacing 

/string/ 		 search for string 

string 		 search backwards for string 

n 		 find next (or previous) occurence of string 

:g/search/s//replace/gc 		 search and replace,     consult at each occurence 



Clearing the Screen 

Ctrl-L 		 clear scrambled screen 



Inserting a File Into a File 

:r filename 		 insert (read) filename after cursor 

:34 r filename 		 insert filename after line 34 



Saving and Quitting 

:w 		 save changes (write buffer) 

:w filename 		 write buffer to filename

:wq 		 save changes and quit vi 

ZZ 		 save changes and quit vi 

:q! 		 quit without saving changes