Strengthening Your vim Skills

G. Wade Johnson

vim Philosophy

• Text surgery
• Edit more than write
• Don't spend all of your time in insert mode
• Powerful commands in combinations
• Effective editing through repetition

Repetition

• . command
• Learn commands that can repeat
• Part of repeatable commands is good use of motion
• Macros
• Maps

Refresher: Basic vim Movement

• h/j/k/l
• b/B e/E w/W ge/gE
• 0/^/$
• f/t/F/T ;/,
• H/M/L zt/zz/zb
• gg G {line}G
• Ctrl-F Ctrl-B Ctrl-D Ctrl-U
• */#

Refresher: Edit Command Patterns

• [repeat]{command}{motion} - apply command over range of motion
• [repeat]{command}{command} - apply command to lines
• {repeat}{command} - apply a command multiple times

Refresher: Edit Commands

• Delete: d{motion}/D (D => d$)
• Change: c{motion}/C (C => d$a)
• Substitute: s{motion}/S (S => ^C)
• Yank: y{motion}
• Paste: p{motion}/P

More vim Movement

• m{a-zA-Z} - set a mark
• `{mark} - position of specified mark
• '{mark} - beginning of line of specified mark
• `` - position of last edit
• '' - beginning of line of last edit
• {num}% - percent of file
• :{line} - Go to line

Text Objects

• Start with a or i
• Used in place of movement in commands
• w W s p
• ]/[ )/(/b ]/[/B >/< t
• " ' `

Text Objects: examples

• caw
• yiw
• di"
• gqap
• gqat

Registers

• :reg
• "{reg}{command}
• "{REG}{command}
• Named registers
• Numbered registers
  • "0 last yank
  • "1 last delete or change
  • "[2-9] previous values of "1
• Unnamed register: ""

Special Registers

• Clipboard: "* "+
• Small delete register: "- - within a line
• Black hole register: "_
• Expression register: "=
• Current file: "%
• Search register: "/
• Command register: ":
• Ctrl-R in colon or insert mode

Using Registers

• "add - delete line into a register
• "Add - delete line and append to a register
• "ap - paste from a register
• "_dd - delete line without putting in register
• Ctrl-R with expression register is handy

Diff Mode

• Start with vimdiff {files} or vim -d {files}
• Compare up to 5 files at once
• Use do/dp to copy changes
• diffget and diffput

Macros

• q{0-9a-zA-Z"} begin recording a macro
• q end macro recording
• @{0-9a-zA-Z".=*+} execute specified macro
• @@ Execute last executed macro
• Macros are stored in registers
  • Paste macro into editor
  • Edit macro to correct mistakes
  • Cut back into register

Ex Commands

• :s/re/replace/[g][c]
• :g/re/{command}
• :v/re/{command}
• [range]y [x]
• [line]pu [x]

More Ex Commands

• [range]co {address}
• [range]m {address}
• [range]r [file]
• [range]r !{cmd}

Buffer Manipulation

• :ls
• :{num}b
• :n/:N
• :bd
• :bufdo

Maps

• :map/:nmap/:imap etc.
• Map one or more characters to a command
• Special characters surrounded by < and >
• Two of my favorites:
  • :nmap n nzz
  • :nmap N Nzz

Windows

• Ctrl-W is the window to the rest
• :sp [file]/Ctrl-W s - Split horizontally
• :vsp [file]/Ctrl-W v - split vertically
• Ctrl-W c - close window
• Ctrl-W = - make windows equal size
• Ctrl-W +/- - make windows larger/smaller
• Ctrl-W h/j/k/l - move to window in a direction
• Ctrl-W w - move to next window

Resources

• vimtutor - usually installed with vim
• Vim Adventures
• Practical vim - Recommended book
• :help {command}