vi editor Quick Reference & Cheat Sheet

Introduction

Learn about the default text editor, vi, pronounced as ”vee eye”, in Unix, Linux and other Unix like systems. A short, concise vi quick reference lets you get started with vi today. Explains vi editor mode & vi commands with examples for editing in vi. Click to download and print vi editor Cheat Sheet in PDF format.

In order to work correctly the vi need correct terminal type (TERM) setting depending on the type of terminal you have. Commonly used TERM types are vt100 , vt220 and ansi. In most cases vt100 will work fine. In case vi is not able to understand the TERM you have given, it starts in open mode giving you a line by line display .
TERM’s value is taken from .profile or /etc/profile but can be set at the command line as :
$TERM=vt100
$export TERM
echo $TERM will display the current TERM set.

Modes in vi

vi operates in following two modes :
i.) Command Mode: After a file is opened it is opened in command mode and input from the keyboard will be treated as vi commands, you will not see the words you are typing on the screen
ii.) Insert Mode : vi enters in insert mode by pressing letter ‘i’ or ‘a’ and it will accept letter typed as input
iii) Switch between vi mode : Press Esc key to swich modes, Esc -> i (text mode) -> Esc (command mode)

Following sections provide a vi quick referance to perform everyday tasks.

File Open/Save/Quit
Moving Around
Editing
Operations
Search/Replace

File Open/Save/Quit

Command	Description
vi filename	Open or create file
vi	Open new file to be named later
vi -r filename	Recover crashed file
view filename	Open file read-only

Saving and Quitting
:w	Save changes (write buffer)
:w filename	Write buffer to named file
:wq	Save changes and quit vi
ZZ	Save changes and quit vi
:q!	Quit without saving changes

Moving Around

Moving Cursor in file
h	Move one character left
j	Move one line down
k	Move one line up
l	Move one character to right
w	Move one word right
W	Move one word (past punctuation) right
b	Move one word left
B	Move one word (past punctuation) left
e	Move to of current word end

Moving Cursor with keys
Return/Enter key	Move down one line down
Backspace	Move left one character left
Spacebar	Move right one character right

Moving on Screen
H	Move to of screen top
M	Move to middle of screen
L	Move to bottom of screen

Moving on Screen using ctrl key combination
Ctrl-f	Page forward one screen forward
Ctrl-d	Scroll forward one-half screen
Ctrl-b	Page backward one screen
Ctrl-u	Scroll backward one-half screen

Editing

Insert Characters and Lines
a	Insert characters right of cursor
A	Insert characters end of line
i	Insert characters left of cursor
I	Insert characters beginning of line
o	Insert line below cursor
O	Insert line above cursor

Text Change Operations
cc	Change line
cw	Change characters in a word or entire word right of cursor
C	Change from cursor cursor to end of line
s	Substitute string for character(s) from cursor forward
r	Replace character with other character at cursor
r Return	Break line at cursor
J	Join to current line line below
xp	Transpose character cursor and character to right
~	Change case of letter to uppercase or lowercase at cursor
u	Undo previous command
U	Undo all changes to current line
:u	Undo previous line command

Delete Text in file
x	Delete character at the cursor
X	Delete character to the left of the cursor
dw	Delete word (or part of word to right of cursor)
dd	Delete line containing the cursor
D	Delete part of line to right of cursor
dG	Delete to end of file
d1G	Delete from beginning of file to cursor
:1,4 d	Delete lines 1 to 4

Copy and Move lines
yy	Yank or copy current line
4yy	Copy 4 lines
Y	Yank or copy line
p	Put yanked or deleted line below current line
P	Put yanked or deleted line above current line
:1,2 co 3	Copy lines 1-2 and put after line 3
:4,6 m 7	Move lines 4-6 and put after line 7

Inserting a File Into a File
:r filename	Insert (read) file after cursor
:34 r filename	Insert file after line 34

Operations

Show/hide Line Numbers
:set nu	Show line numbers for all lines
:set nonu	Hide numbers for all line

set/ignore case for search
:set ic	Searches should ignore case
:set noic	Searches should be case sensitive

go to line
G	Go to last line of file
1G	Go to first line of file
21G	Go to line 21

Clearing the Screen
Ctrl-L	Clear screen of std-io messages	screen

Search and Replace

Search and Replace
/string	Search for string anywhere in file
?string	Search backward for string
n	Find next occurrence of string in search direction
N	Find previous occurrence of string in search direction
:%s/search/s/replace/g	Search and replace in file

4 Comments

PCSH


February 25, 2014, 9:42 am

Hi, I am wondering what is the difference between normal quit (:q or :wq) and forced quit (:q! or :wq!)? What is it forcing to do? To override something? Please help. Thanks!
- Waheb
  
  
  July 21, 2016, 5:42 am
  
  not overite but ! means do it without asking, just do it 😀
Eric


August 20, 2014, 7:46 pm

q will exit, but does not exit if there are changes.
q! will exit with unsaved changes.
wq will save and exit.
—
Looks like a good reference, but there are a few errors:

20d does not delete line 20, it deletes 20 lines.
:20d deletes line 20.

This command will replace the character 1 after the cursor with everything after the first keystroke:
s///g .
This command will perform a search and replace on the current line:
:s///g
This command will perform a search and replace on the entire document:
:%s///g

For simplicity (when working with searches involving slashes) I use the modified syntax:
:%s!!!g
Vanessa


November 3, 2014, 12:33 pm

The ~, or tilde, will reverse case of your typed text. This also advances the cursor right by one space. If the character does not have a case, it will simply advance by one space. This has been remarkably useful time saver.