vi(1) General Commands Manual vi(1)
Name
vi - screen editor
Syntax
vi [ -t tag ] [ +command ] [ -l ] [ -r ] [ -wn ] [ -x ] name...
Description
The (visual) editor is a display-oriented text editor based on The command and the command run the same code. You can access the command
mode of from within
The following is a list of some of the commands. See the vi Beginner's Reference Card and "An Introduction to Display Editing with vi" in
the Supplementary Documents, Volume 1: General User for more details on using
Screen Control Commands
<CTRL/L> Reprints current screen.
<CTRL/Y> Exposes one more line at top of screen.
<CTRL/E> Exposes one more line at bottom of screen.
Paging Commands
<CTRL/F> Pages forward one screen.
<CTRL/B> Pages back one screen.
<CTRL/D> Pages down half screen.
<CTRL/U> Pages up half screen.
Cursor Positioning Commands
j Moves cursor down one line, same column.
k Moves cursor up one line, same column.
h Moves cursor back one character.
l Moves cursor forward one character.
<RETURN> Moves cursor to beginning of next line.
0 Moves cursor to beginning of current line.
$ Moves cursor to end of current line.
<SPACE> Moves cursor forward one character.
nG Moves cursor to beginning of line n. Default is last line of file.
/pattern Moves cursor forward to next occurrence of pattern.
?pattern Moves cursor backward to next occurrence of pattern.
n Repeats last / or ? pattern search.
Text Insertion Commands
a Appends text after cursor. Terminated by <ESC>.
A Appends text at the end of the line. Terminated by <ESC>.
i Inserts text before cursor. Terminated by <ESC>.
I Inserts text at the beginning of the line. Terminated by <ESC>.
o Opens new line below the current line for text insertion. Terminated by <ESC>.
O Opens new line above the current line for text insertion. Terminated by <ESC>.
<DELETE> Overwrites last character during text insertion.
<ESC> Stops text insertion.
Text Deletion Commands
dw Deletes current word.
x Deletes current character.
dd Deletes current line.
D, d$ Deletes from cursor to end of line.
P Puts back text from the previous delete.
Text Change Commands
cw Changes characters of current word until stopped with escape key.
c$ Changes text up to the end of the line.
C, c$ Changes remaining text on current line until stopped by pressing the escape key.
~ Changes case of current character.
xp Transposes current and following characters.
J Joins current line with next line.
rx Replaces current character with x.
Buffer Usage Commands
[a-z]n yy Yanks n lines to the [a-z] buffer. Default is current line.
[a-z]n p Puts n yanked text lines from the a-z buffer, after the cursor.
Exiting vi
ZZ Exits and saves changes
:wq Writes changes to current file and quits edit session.
:q Quits edit session (no changes made).
The command uses all of the same edit or commands as However, does not allow you to write the file. See
Options
-t tag Specifies a list of tag files. The tag files are preceded by a backslash () and are separated by spaces. The tag option should
always be the first entry.
+command Tells the editor to begin by executing the specified command. A useful example would be +/pattern to search for a pattern.
-l Sets the showmatch and lisp options for editing LISP code.
-r name Retrieves the last saved version of the name'd file in the event of an editor or system crash. If no file is specified, a list
of saved files is produced.
-wn Sets the default window size to n. This option is useful for starting in a small window on dialups. The -x option is available
only if the Encryption layered product is installed.
-x Causes to prompt for a key. The key is used to encrypt and decrypt the contents of the file. If the file contents have been
encrypted with one key, you must use the same key to decrypt the file.
Restrictions
Software tabs using ^T work only immediately after the autoindent.
Left and right shifts on intelligent terminals do not make use of insert and delete character operations in the terminal.
The wrapmargin option sometimes works incorrectly because it looks at output columns when blanks are typed. If a long word passes through
the margin and onto the next line without a break, then the line is not broken.
Insert/delete within a line can be slow if tabs are present on intelligent terminals, since the terminals need help in doing this cor-
rectly.
Saving text on deletes in the named buffers is somewhat inefficient.
The source command does not work when executed as :source; there is no way to use the :append, :change, and :insert commands, since it is
not possible to give on a :global you must Q to command mode, execute them, and then reenter the screen editor with or
See Also
ed(1), ex(1), view(1)
The Little Gray Book: An ULTRIX Primer
The Big Gray Book: The Next Step with ULTRIX
"An Introduction to Display Editing with Vi", Supplementary Documents, Volume 1: General User
vi(1)