V       – selects entire lines
v       – selects range of text
ctrl-v  – selects columns
gv      – reselect block

 

Text Entry Commands (Used to start text entry)

 

a  Append text following current cursor position
A  Append text to the end of current line
i   Insert text before the current cursor position
I   Insert text at the beginning of the cursor line
o  Open up a new line following the current line and add text there
O  Open up a new line in front of the current line and add text there

h  Moves the cursor one character to the left
l   Moves the cursor one character to the right
k Moves the cursor up one line
j  Moves the cursor down one line

nG or :n Cursor goes to the specified (n) line (ex. 10G goes to line 10)
^F (CTRl F) Forward screenful
^B Backward screenful
^f One page forward
^b One page backward
^U Up half screenful
^D Down half screenful

$   Move cursor to the end of current line
0  (zero) Move cursor to the beginning of current line
w  Forward one word
b  Backward one word

 

Exit Commands

:wq Write file to disk and quit the editor
:q!  Quit (no warning)
:q   Quit (a warning is printed if a modified file has not been saved)
ZZ  Save workspace and quit the editor (same as :wq)

: 10,25 w temp     write lines 10 through 25 into file named temp. Of course, other line numbers can be used. (Use :f to find out the line numbers you want.

 

Text Deletion Commands

x    Delete character
dw Delete word from cursor on
db  Delete word backward
dd  Delete line
d$  Delete to end of line
d^  (d caret, not CTRL d) Delete to beginning of line

 

Yank (has most of the options of delete)– VI’s copy commmand

yy   yank current line
y$   yank to end of current line from cursor
yw  yank from cursor to end of current word
5yy yank, for example, 5 lines

 

Paste (used after delete or yank to recover lines.)

p   paste below cursor
P   paste above cursor
“2p paste from buffer 2 (there are 9)
u   Undo last change
U  Restore line
J  Join next line down to the end of the current line

 

File Manipulation Commands

:w   Write workspace to original file

:w file Write workspace to named file
:e   file Start editing a new file
:r file Read contents of a file to the workspace

To create a page break, while in the insert mode, press the CTRL key

And l. ^L will appear in your text and will cause the printer to start

Most commands can be repeated n times by typing a number, n, before
the command. For example 10dd means delete 10 lines.

.  Repeat last command
cw  Change current word to a new word
r     Replace one character at the cursor position
R    Begin overstrike or replace mode   use ESC key to exit

:/   pattern Search forward for the pattern
😕  pattern Search backward for the pattern
n  (used after either of the 2 search commands above to continue to find next occurrence of the pattern.
:g/pat1/s//pat2/g replace every occurrence of pattern1 (pat1) with pat2

Example :g/tIO/s//Ada.Text_IO/g

This will find and replace tIO by Ada.text_IO everywhere in the file.
:g/a/s// /g replace the letter a, by blank
:g/a/s///g replace a by nothing
note: Even this command be undone by u