Getting Familiar With VI

There are so many text editors for *nix systems, but VI is surely the most historically widespread. VI stands for VIsual editor, and VIM is an "IMproved" version of VI that can usually be installed via a package manager. You can find VI in any Linux distribution, in many Unix flavors, as well as Mac OS X systems. VI is a textual editor, so you do not have all the bells and whistles that are so common with graphical text editors. This intimidates some people, but when all you have is a console, and you do not have a desktop UI readily available, a textual editor may be your only solution. The fact that it is available in all *nix platforms, guarantees it will be available regardless of the system you are logged into. Learning how to use VI will prevent you from wasting time looking for an editor while working on a *nix system.

There are three modes in VI:

normal mode
insert mode
command

To run VI

Open a Terminal and type 'vi [filename]'.
As soon as you entered VI, you were put in normal mode.
To enter insert mode, just press the 'i' or 'a' key.

Let's see a simple editing session:

# vi myfile (you are creating a file called 'myfile')
-press 'i' (to enter insert mode), and then type 'this is a simple text file.' to insert your text into the file.
-hit the 'Esc' key (this takes you back to normal mode.).
-now press ':' (to enter command mode) and then 'wq!' (this is the command that will write the file and close VI).
#

Now, wasn’t that easy? Below find some common commands to help get you started with VI…

Normal mode commands

	w -> go to the beginning of the next word
	b -> go to the beginning of the previous word
	e -> go to the end of the next word
	n| -> go to the 'n' columns of the current row
	$ -> go to the end of the current row
	^ -> go to the first character of the current row
	G -> go to the end of the file
	gg -> go to the beginning of the file
	Gn -> go to 'n' row of the file
	x -> delete one character
	nx -> delete 'n' characters
	dd -> delete the whole row
	ndd -> delete 'n' rows
	yy -> copy the current row
	p -> paste the copied row
	Rmystring -> replace next characters with 'mystring'
	/string -> find the next string 'string'
	?string -> find the string 'string' backwards
	n -> repeat the search again
	u -> undo the last command

Insert mode commands

	i -> insert mode (before the cursor)
	a -> insert mode (after the cursor)
	o -> insert mode (under the current row)

Command mode commands

	:w -> write the file
	:w myfile -> write the file as 'myfile'
	:q -> quit the file
	:wq -> write and quit the file
	:q! -> quit without saving the file
	:help -> open help file 
	  (:q to return to editing the file)
	:help topic -> open help file with subject 'topic'
	  (:q to return to editing the file)
	:[range]s/str1/str2/[options] -> using [range],
	  replace str1 with str2,
	  options: g (replace all), c (ask before replace)
	:set number -> set rows numbering

Getting Familiar With VI ✅