100 Vim commands every programmer should know

Posted by jbj on Jun 30, 2008 in Web development • 64 comments

Since the 70’s, Vi is one of the programmer’s best friend. Nevermind you’re new to Vi or not, here’s a big list of 100 useful commands, organized by topic, which will make your coder life better.

Search

/word Search “word” from top to bottom
?word Search “word” from bottom to top
/jo[ha]n Search “john” or “joan”
/\< the Search “the”, “theatre” or “then”
/the\> Search “the” or “breathe”
/\< the\> Search “the”
/\< ….\> Search all words of 4 letters
/\/ Search “fred” but not “alfred” or “frederick”
/fred\|joe Search “fred” or “joe”
/\<\d\d\d\d\> Search exactly 4 digits
/^\n\{3} Find 3 empty lines
:bufdo /searchstr/ Search in all open files

Replace

:%s/old/new/g Replace all occurences of “old” by “new” in file
:%s/old/new/gw Replace all occurences with confirmation
:2,35s/old/new/g Replace all occurences between lines 2 and 35
:5,$s/old/new/g Replace all occurences from line 5 to EOF
:%s/^/hello/g Replace the begining of each line by “hello”
:%s/$/Harry/g Replace the end of each line by “Harry”
:%s/onward/forward/gi Replace “onward” by “forward” , case unsensitive
:%s/ *$//g Delete all white spaces
:g/string/d Delete all lines containing “string”
:v/string/d Delete all lines containing which didn’t contain “string”
:s/Bill/Steve/ Replace the first occurence of “Bill” by “Steve” in current line
:s/Bill/Steve/g Replace “Bill” by “Steve” in current line
:%s/Bill/Steve/g Replace “Bill” by “Steve” in all the file
:%s/\r//g Delete DOS carriage returns (^M)
:%s/\r/\r/g Transform DOS carriage returns in returns
:%s#<[^>]\+>##g Delete HTML tags but keeps text
:%s/^\(.*\)\n\1$/\1/ Delete lines which appears twice
Ctrl+a Increment number under the cursor
Ctrl+x Decrement number under cursor
ggVGg? Change text to Rot13

Case

Vu Lowercase line
VU Uppercase line
g~~ Invert case
vEU Switch word to uppercase
vE~ Modify word case
ggguG Set all text to lowercase
:set ignorecase Ignore case in searches
:set smartcase Ignore case in searches excepted if an uppercase letter is used
:%s/\<./\u&/g Sets first letter of each word to uppercase
:%s/\<./\l&/g Sets first letter of each word to lowercase
:%s/.*/\u& Sets first letter of each line to uppercase
:%s/.*/\l& Sets first letter of each line to lowercase

Read/Write files

:1,10 w outfile Saves lines 1 to 10 in outfile
:1,10 w >> outfile Appends lines 1 to 10 to outfile
:r infile Insert the content of infile
:23r infile Insert the content of infile under line 23

File explorer

:e . Open integrated file explorer
:Sex Split window and open integrated file explorer
:browse e Graphical file explorer
:ls List buffers
:cd .. Move to parent directory
:args List files
:args *.php Open file list
:grep expression *.php Returns a list of .php files contening expression
gf Open file name under cursor

Interact with Unix

:!pwd Execute the “pwd” unix command, then returns to Vi
!!pwd Execute the “pwd” unix command and insert output in file
:sh Temporary returns to Unix
$exit Retourns to Vi

Alignment

:%!fmt Align all lines
!}fmt Align all lines at the current position
5!!fmt Align the next 5 lines

Tabs

:tabnew Creates a new tab
gt Show next tab
:tabfirst Show first tab
:tablast Show last tab
:tabm n(position) Rearrange tabs
:tabdo %s/foo/bar/g Execute a command in all tabs
:tab ball Puts all open files in tabs

Window spliting

:e filename Edit filename in current window
:split filename Split the window and open filename
ctrl-w up arrow Puts cursor in top window
ctrl-w ctrl-w Puts cursor in next window
ctrl-w_ Maximise current window
ctrl-w= Gives the same size to all windows
10 ctrl-w+ Add 10 lines to current window
:vsplit file Split window vertically
:sview file Same as :split in readonly mode
:hide Close current window
:only Close all windows, excepted current
:b 2 Open #2 in this window

Auto-completion

Ctrl+n Ctrl+p (in insert mode) Complete word
Ctrl+x Ctrl+l Complete line
:set dictionary=dict Define dict as a dictionnary
Ctrl+x Ctrl+k Complete with dictionnary

Marks

mk Marks current position as k
‘k Moves cursor to mark k
d’k Delete all until mark k

Abbreviations

:ab mail mail@provider.org Define mail as abbreviation of mail@provider.org

Text indent

:set autoindent Turn on auto-indent
:set smartindent Turn on intelligent auto-indent
:set shiftwidth=4 Defines 4 spaces as indent size
ctrl-t, ctrl-d Indent/un-indent in insert mode
>> Indent
<< Un-indent

Syntax highlighting

:syntax on Turn on syntax highlighting
:syntax off Turn off syntax highlighting
:set syntax=perl Force syntax highlighting

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