Vim

Comands

• Replace tabs with spaces: :retab
• Make and source session file to restore vim state.
  • Make (create): :mks session.vim
  • Source (restore): vim -S session.vim or :source session.vim
• Change case: gU (to uppercase) or gu (to lowercase) followed by a movement.
• :noh clear highlighting.
• :g/^/m0 reverse all lines.
• /[^\x00-\x7F] find non-ascii characters.
• Multiline editing: C-v Visual-block mode; Highlight area; I Multiline Insert. Can also highlight multiple lines and then user :normal command to apply normal commands to the selection.
• i Switch to edit mode, insert before cursor (a Insert after cursor; I Start of line; A End of line; o Insert new line after; O Insert new line before).
• :sort Sort all or Visual selection.
• :[r]s/foo/bar/[a] Replace. (e.g. :%s/foo/bar/g replace all 'foo' with 'bar'); Add 0 prefix to all lines beginning 2-9: :%s/^[2-9]/0&/g; Replace double-space with tab :%s/ /\t/g. Remove carriage returns (^M) :%s/^M//g (Use C-Q C-M to enter ^M).
  • [r] Range: nothing Current line; number Line to change; % Entire file.
  • [a] Arguments: nothing Replace first occurrence; g Replace all occurrences; i Ignore case; I Don't ignore case; c Confirm (y, n to skip this match, a All, q Quit substitution).
  • s uses \r to represent newline character. To put a new line before "rate": :%s/"rate"/"tier_from": "0",\r "rate"/g
• Activate spell checker (en-uk by default): :set spell. Use z+= in command mode to get correction suggestions.
• Disable smart indentation: :set paste; Re-enable: :set paste!.
• Vim help: Follow link with C-]. Find links with /](.\{-}](
• Multiple Files:
  • Open multiple files at once: vi *.json
  • Show current buffers: :ls
  • Add another file: :arga (or remove/delete one with :argd)
  • Run command on all files: :argdo [command] (e.g. change cmd to command and save with argdo %s/cmd/command/ge ]( w)
  • Tabs: :tabe [filename] New tabWith; gt Next tab; gT Previous tab.
  • Split screen: :sp [filename] Open new split; C-w then w For next split; W for previous split.
• . Replay last command. For more than one command use macros.
• Recording Macros: q Start macro-recording. Next 0-9a-zA-Z is macro/buffer name (q1 records the macro to buffer "1"). q again ends the recording. Replay the macro at any time using @1.
• Convert a dos/windows file (with CRLF/x0d0a line endings) to unix (Check file format with :set ff? ffs?):
  1. :e ++ff=dos Edit as dos file (if not doing so already).
  2. :setlocal ff=unix
  3. :w
• Delete all lines:
  • Which do not contain {{: :v/{{/d. Variant of :[range]v[global]/{pattern}/[cmd].
  • Matching pattern: :g/[pattern]/d (e.g. :g/@login_required/d).
  • Which do not begin with -: :g!/^[-]/d
• Save readonly file as root: :w !sudo tee %.
• Command history: Enter : or / and use up and down arrows to navigate history. Command line window: Type q: for commands, or q/ for searches; C-c C-c to exit. History is stored in ~/.viminfo, if no history is found then check you have update access to that file as it may have been created by root.
• / Search forwards; ? Search backwards; n Next match; N Previous match. :%s/[pattern]//gn Count matches in file. * Search for word under cursor (# Reverse search). :g/[pattern]/# Find all occurrences.
• :browse old List recently opened files.
• u Undo the last action (U Undo all the latest changes that were made to the current line; C-r Redo).
• v Select block by character (V By line; C-v Block visual mode).
• On selected text: ~ Changecase. (> Shift right; < Shift left; c Change the highlighted text; cc Change line; y Yank; yy Yank line; d Delete; dd Delete line; p Paste after; P Paste before; "_d Delete and place in black-hole _ register to reserve what had been yanked before).
• In Edit mode: C-t Increase indent; C-d Decrease indent.
• 0 Start of line; ^ First non-blank character of the line; w Next word; W Next word, ignore punctuation; e Word-end; E Word-end, ignore punctuation; b Word-beginning; B Word-beginning, ignore punctuation; ge Previous word-ending; gE Previous word-ending, ignore punctuation; g_ Last non-blank character of the line; $ Last character of the line.
• G Go to end of file; :1 Start of file; :[n] Line number; H First line of the screen; M Middle line of the screen; L Last line of the screen.
• :![command] Run external command:
  • :![command] % Filter file through external command.
  • :r![command] Insert command output.
  • :%!xxd Run file through hexdump filter (:%!xxd -r Convert dump from hex back to binary).
• :e . File explorer (:Sex Open explorer in new window)
• :set nu Show line numbers; :set nu! Hide line numbers.

Completion

While you are typing, it's pretty common to use the same word over and over again. Using C-p Vim searches the currently typed text backwards for a word starting with the same characters as already typed. C-x C-l completes the whole line.

If you're not sure how to type some word and you've enabled spell-checking (:set spell), you can type C-x C-k to do a dictionary lookup for the already typed characters.

Use ^n and ^p to go back and forth in the suggestion list:

• ^x^n for JUST this file
• ^x^f for filenames
• ^x^] for tags only
• ^x^l whole line
• ^n for anything specified by the complete option

Buffers and Windows

• :b [N] Switch to buffer [N].
• :ls or :buffers Show buffer list. Explanation:
  • % Current window.
  • # Alternate buffer (switch using :e# or :b#).
  • a Active (loaded and visible).
  • h Hidden (loaded but not visible).
  • + Modified.
• :bd Unload the buffer and remove it from bufferlist (don't close Vim, even on the last buffer).
• :bun unload the buffer but stay in bufferlist.
• :sp [N] split current window and edit buffer [N].
• :w Write the current buffer to disk.
• :e file Load a file from disk.
• :q Closes current window (and Vim if it's the last one).
• :new New empty window.
• :on close all windows but the active one (C-w o).
• C-w and h j k l Move between windows.
• C-w = equalise window sizes.

Marks

Vim automatically sets various marks like

• 0-9 Last 10 positions of closed files (0 the last, 1 the last but one).
• < and > Left and right position of marked texts.
• ( and ) Start or end of the current sentence.
• { and } Start or end of the current paragraph.
• [ and ] First or last character of the last yanked or changed text.
• . Last change.
• ' or ` Position before the last jump.
• " Position before the last exit of the file (local to a file).
• ^ position of the last insert-stop.

To set a manual mark, use m[a-zA-Z]. To jump to one of the marks (manual or automatic) you can choose between ' and `:

• ' Sets the cursor to the first non-blank character in the marked line.
• ` Sets the cursor to the exact position where the mark was set.

There is a little difference between lower-case and upper-case characters:

• a-z Are local to a file.
• A-Z Are stored and available over sessions (associated with a file).

You can use L for your work-log and T for your time-table for example, and quickly update the information there.

For example you can jump to the last known position of a file before it was closed by typing `" (it's easy to configure Vim to do it automatically at start).

To get a list of all marks Vim knows about type :marks. To delete marks use :delmarks (:delmarks a b c removes marks a and b and c, to delete all marks use :delmarks!).

vimdiff

vimdiff file1 file2 highlights differences between files.

Commands

• ]c jump to next change ([c previous change).
• :diffget [buffer_id] replace current change with equivalent in other buffer.
• C-W C-W switch to the other buffer.
• :diffupdate refresh display.
• :colorscheme evening change colours.
• :ls list buffers.
• zo open folded text.
• zc close folded text .
• :syntax off
• If using only two buffers:
  • do get change from other buffer.
  • dp put the changes from current buffer into the other.