UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

How can I find a list of shortcut commands I can execute within vi using the % indicator?

For example, I can vi a file, press colon, and then type "%s/\r//g" to remove all instances of a carriage return. What else can be executed from the % prompt and what are the shortcut letters (I could type 's' instead of 'sed' plus I did not have to specify the single quotes to encompass the expression as I would normally have to do in a shell: sed 's/\r//g')?

Of course I tried googling but I'm unclear on how to google for special characters such as ! or %.

The percent sign as you described is shorthand meaning all lines in the file. You could replace it with a 1,5 for example to restrict the following search/replace to that range of lines.

Search for "vi commands" or "vi colon commands" and start reading!

Gary

Thanks - I see the colon commands now. I've been handed a .csv which contains information on each line that would be extremely useful for grepping. Unfortunately, some cells contain carriage returns or newlines. I have been able to join lines that really should be together via this sed quickie:

Code:

:%s/$\n$//g

which removes newlines followed by a blank line and basically joins the lines. However, there are some lines that follow the $\n that are characters. I still need these joined.

After examining this I don't see a way that sed can differentiate between fragmented lines versus non-fragmented lines, and hence I could possibly join all 6K lines in the file inadvertently. Oh well.

Is there no tell-tale text that would indicate a line is really a continuation of the previous line? Maybe post an example or two.

The : prompt is a place to enter an ex command; see books on ex. It is much like sed. 'vi' stands for 'visual ex'.

You can test a line with ':.l' to see any specials and where the real end of line occurs. When I used qedx under MULTICS, very ex-like, it prefixed continued lines with '\c' so there was less doubt they were continued, as '\c' was improbable as a literal. Maybe there is an option of that flavor. vi Editor Pocket Reference or for vim Vim documentation: options You can set default options in $HOME/.exrc