UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I've come to like vi, but I am plagued by not being able to delete characters. I can delete lines with the ":delete" command but I can't find a way to delete single characters. anybody know?????

my other problem is that when I reopen a file with vi and try to edit a line, it wont overwrite characters, it just adds the character i typed and pushes the others forward. When I create new lines it overwrites any characters i want, but not editing the old line. Is there a way to turn on overwrite or something?

(in case my system info matters for either of those questions, I run macosx and a tcsh shell)

Thanks, Blip

Type x in command mode to delete character.

Type R in command mode to enter replace mode.

if your using vim i believe you can also use the delete and insert keys aswell. (although this defeats the purpose of vi to begin with, it does make it easier to pick up.)

Try http://www.thomer.com/vi/vi.html from a past thread, or just search google: http://www.google.com/search?q=unix+vi+tutorial

There is also a lot of documentation (including a 500+ book in PDF) at http://www.vim.org/docs.php.