Master Vim: Essential Commands, Modes, and Tips for Efficient Text Editing

Vim: Text Editor

Function Description:

Vim is a text editor derived from vi.

Vim provides programming editing capabilities, highlighting syntax with colors to aid development.

Command Syntax:

vim [options] [file]

Reference Examples:

Example 1

Edit a specified file:

[root@cnLinuxer ~]# vim readme.txt

Example 2

Edit a specified file starting from line 5:

[root@cnLinuxer ~]# vim +5 readme.txt

Example 3

Open a file and position at the last line:

[root@cnLinuxer ~]# vim + readme.txt

Example 4

Recover a file after a crash:

[root@cnLinuxer ~]# vim -r readme.txt

Knowledge Summary

Vim three modes

Vim has three modes: Command mode, Ex mode (last‑line mode), and Insert mode.

The modes switch logic and command chart:

Command Mode

Command mode is Vim's default mode when a file is opened.

Basic operations include cursor movement, deletion, copying, pasting, changing, scrolling, and exiting.

1. Cursor movement

(1) Move to last line: G

(2) Move to first line: gg

(3) Move to a specific line: {number}G

(4) Move up/down by lines: {number}↑ or {number}↓

(5) Move to first non‑blank character of the line: ^

(6) Move to end of line: $

(7) Move to beginning of line: 0

(8) Move left one character: h

(9) Move right one character: l

(10) Move up one line: k

(11) Move down one line: j

2. Delete, copy, paste, undo

(1) Delete current character: x

(2) Delete current line: dd

(3) Delete n lines: ndd

(4) Copy current line: yy

(5) Paste after current line: p

(6) Delete from cursor to end of line: D

(7) Undo last action: u

3. Scrolling

(1) Scroll down a page: Ctrl+f

(2) Scroll up a page: Ctrl+b

(3) Scroll half‑page forward: Ctrl+d

(4) Scroll half‑page backward: Ctrl+u

4. Exit

(1) Quit without saving: :q!

(2) Save and quit: :wq!

(3) Save as a new file: :w a.txt

Ex Mode (Last‑line mode)

Press : in command mode to enter Ex mode.

Basic operations include saving, saving as, exiting, searching, and replacing.

1. Save

Command: :w (write)

Effect: Saves changes made to the file.

2. Save As

Command: :w {filepath}

Effect: Saves the file to the specified path.

3. Exit

(1) Quit without saving: :q!

(2) Save and quit: :wq!

(3) Save as a.txt: :w a.txt

4. Search

Command: / or ? followed by the search string ( / for forward, ? for backward ).

Example: /fail searches for the string “fail”.

Use n for next match, N for previous; matches are highlighted.

5. Replace

:s/man/woman – replace first occurrence of “man” with “woman” on the current line

:s/man/woman/g – replace all occurrences of “man” with “woman” on the current line

:2,5s/man/woman/g – replace “man” with “woman” from line 2 to line 5

:%s/man/woman/g – replace “man” with “woman” throughout the file

Insert Mode

Press i in command mode to enter insert mode.

In insert mode, the following keys are used:

Character keys and Shift combinations to input characters

Enter to create a new line

Backspace to delete the character before the cursor

Delete to delete the character after the cursor

Arrow keys to move the cursor

Home/End to move to line start/end

Page Up/Page Down to scroll pages

Insert to toggle between insert and replace mode

Esc to exit insert mode and return to command mode

Additional Common Commands

1. Show line numbers

In Ex mode, type :set nu to display line numbers temporarily; to make it permanent, add echo :set nu > .vimrc to the home directory.

2. Redo/Undo

Undo: :u in Ex mode.

Redo: Ctrl+r.

Multi‑step undo: {count}u.

3. Recover from abnormal closure

Delete the swap file associated with the edited file:

rm -f .data.txt.swp
# Note: swap files usually have the format .filename.swp

4. Difference between :wq and :x

In practice, :x is recommended. :wq updates the file’s modification time regardless of changes, while :x updates it only when the file content actually changes.