Vi Editor

Front 1

<control-A>

Back 1

Search forward for the word starting at the cursor position.

Front 2

[count] <control-B>

Back 2

Page backwards count screens. Two lines of overlap are maintained, if possible.

Front 3

[count] <control-D>

Back 3

Scroll forward count lines. If count is not given, scroll forward the number of lines specified by the last <control-D> or <control-U> command. If this is the first <control-D> command, scroll half the number of lines in the current screen.

Front 4

[count] <control-E>

Back 4

Scroll forward count lines, leaving the current line and column as is, if possible.

Front 5

[count] <control-F>

Back 5

Page forward count screens. Two lines of overlap are maintained, if possible.

Front 6

<control-G>

Back 6

Display the following file information: the file name (as given to vi); whether the file has been modified since it was last written; if the file is readonly; the current line number; the total number of lines in the file; and the current line number as a percentage of the total lines in the file.

Front 7

[count] <control-H>
[count] h

Back 7

Move the cursor back count characters in the current line.

Front 8

[count] <control-J>
[count] <control-N>
[count] j

Back 8

Move the cursor down count lines without changing the current column.

Front 9

<control-L>
<control-R>

Back 9

Repaint the screen.

Front 10

[count] <control-M>
[count] +

Back 10

Move the cursor down count lines to the first non-blank character of that line.

Front 11

[count] <control-P>
[count] k

Back 11

Move the cursor up count lines, without changing the current column.

Front 12

<control-T>

Back 12

Return to the most recent tag context.

Front 13

[count] <control-U>

Back 13

Scroll backwards count lines. If count is not given, scroll backwards the number of lines specified by the last <control-D> or <control-U> command. If this is the first <control-U> command, scroll half the number of lines in the current screen.

Front 14

<control-W>

Back 14

Switch to the next lower screen in the window, or to the first screen if there are no lower screens in the window.

Front 15

[count] <control-Y>

Back 15

Scroll backwards count lines, leaving the current line and column as is, if possible.

Front 16

<control-Z>

Back 16

Suspend the current editor session.

Front 17

<escape>

Back 17

Execute the ex command being entered, or cancel it if it is only partial.

Front 18

<control-]>

Back 18

Push a tag reference onto the tag stack.

Front 19

<control-^>

Back 19

Switch to the most recently edited file.

Front 20

[count] <space>
[count] l

Back 20

Move the cursor forward count characters without changing the current line.

Front 21

[count] ! motion shell-argument(s) <carriage-return>

Back 21

Replace the lines spanned by count and motion with the output (standard output and standard error) of the program named by the shell option, called with a -c flag followed by the shell-argument(s) (bundled into a single argument). Within shell-argument(s), the ‘%’, ‘#’ and ‘!’ characters are expanded to the current file name, the previous current file name, and the command text of the previous ! or :! commands, respectively. The special meaning of ‘%’, ‘#’ and ‘!’ can be overridden by escaping them with a backslash.

Front 22

[count] # #|+|-

Back 22

Increment (trailing ‘#’ or ‘+’) or decrement (trailing ‘-’) the number under the cursor by count, starting at the cursor position or at the first non-blank character following it. Numbers with a leading ‘0x’ or ‘0X’ are interpreted as hexadecimal numbers. Numbers with a leading ‘0’ are interpreted as octal numbers unless they contain a non-octal digit. Other numbers may be prefixed with a ‘+’ or ‘-’ sign.

Front 23

[count] $

Back 23

Move the cursor to the end of a line. If count is specified, additionally move the cursor down count - 1 lines.

Front 24

%

Back 24

Move to the parenthesis, square bracket or curly brace matching the one found at the cursor position or the closest to the right of it.

Front 25

&

Back 25

Repeat the previous substitution command on the current line.

Front 26

'<character>
`<character>

Back 26

Return to the cursor position marked by the character character, or, if character is ‘'’ or ‘`’, to the position of the cursor before the last of the following commands: <control-A>, <control-T>, <control-]>, %, ', `, (, ), /, ?, G, H, L, [[, ]], {, }. The first form returns to the first non-blank character of the line marked by character. The second form returns to the line and column marked by character.

Front 27

[count] (
[count] )

Back 27

Move count sentences backward or forward, respectively. A sentence is an area of text that begins with the first nonblank character following the previous sentence, paragraph, or section boundary and continues until the next period, exclamation mark, or question mark character, followed by any number of closing parentheses, brackets, double or single quote characters, followed by either an end-of-line or two whitespace characters. Groups of empty lines (or lines containing only whitespace characters) are treated as a single sentence.

Front 28

[count] ,

Back 28

Reverse find character (i.e. the last F, f, T or t command) count times.

Front 29

[count] -

Back 29

Move to the first non-blank character of the previous line, count times.

Front 30

[count] .

Back 30

Repeat the last vi command that modified text. count replaces both the count argument of the repeated command and that of the associated motion. If the . command repeats the u command, the change log is rolled forward or backward, depending on the action of the u command.

Front 31

/RE <carriage-return>
/RE/ [offset] [z] <carriage-return>
?RE <carriage-return>
?RE? [offset] [z] <carriage-return>
N
n

Back 31

Search forward (‘/’) or backward (‘?’) for a regular expression. n and N repeat the last search in the same or opposite directions, respectively. If RE is empty, the last search regular expression is used. If offset is specified, the cursor is placed offset lines before or after the matched regular expression. If either n or N commands are used as motion components for the ! command, there will be no prompt for the text of the command and the previous ! will be executed. Multiple search patterns may be grouped together by delimiting them with semicolons and zero or more whitespace characters. These patterns are evaluated from left to right with the final cursor position determined by the last search pattern. A z command may be appended to the closed search expressions to reposition the result line.

Front 32

0

Back 32

Move to the first character in the current line.

Front 33

:

Back 33

Execute an ex command.

Front 34

[count] ;

Back 34

Repeat the last character find (i.e. the last F, f, T or t command) count times.

Front 35

[count] < motion
[count] > motion

Back 35

Shift count lines left or right, respectively, by an amount of shiftwidth.

Front 36

@ buffer

Back 36

Execute a named buffer as vi commands. The buffer may include ex commands too, but they must be expressed as a : command. If buffer is ‘@’ or ‘*’, then the last buffer executed shall be used.

Front 37

[count] A

Back 37

Enter input mode, appending the text after the end of the line. If a count argument is given, the characters input are repeated count - 1 times after input mode is exited.

Front 38

[count] B

Back 38

Move backwards count bigwords.

Front 39

[buffer] C

Back 39

Change text from the current position to the end-of-line. If buffer is specified, “yank” the deleted text into buffer.

Front 40

[buffer] D

Back 40

Delete text from the current position to the end-of-line. If buffer is specified, “yank” the deleted text into buffer.

Front 41

[count] E

Back 41

Move forward count end-of-bigwords.

Front 42

[count] F <character>

Back 42

Search count times backward through the current line for character.

Front 43

[count] G

Back 43

Move to line count, or the last line of the file if count is not specified.

Front 44

[count] H

Back 44

Move to the screen line count - 1 lines below the top of the screen.

Front 45

[count] I

Back 45

Enter input mode, inserting the text at the beginning of the line. If a count argument is given, the characters input are repeated count - 1 more times.

Front 46

[count] J

Back 46

Join count lines with the current line. The spacing between two joined lines is set to two whitespace characters if the former ends with a question mark, a period or an exclamation mark. It is set to one whitespace character otherwise.

Front 47

[count] L

Back 47

Move to the screen line count - 1 lines above the bottom of the screen.

Front 48

M

Back 48

Move to the screen line in the middle of the screen.

Front 49

[count] O

Back 49

Enter input mode, appending text in a new line above the current line. If a count argument is given, the characters input are repeated count - 1 more times.

Front 50

[buffer] P

Back 50

Insert text from buffer before the current column if buffer is character-oriented or before the current line if it is line-oriented.

Front 51

Q

Back 51

Exit vi (or visual) mode and switch to ex mode.

Front 52

[count] R

Back 52

Enter input mode, replacing the characters in the current line. If a count argument is given, the characters input are repeated count - 1 more times upon exit from insert mode.

Front 53

[buffer] [count] S

Back 53

Substitute count lines. If buffer is specified, “yank” the deleted text into buffer.

Front 54

[count] T <character>

Back 54

Search backwards, count times, through the current line for the character after the specified character.

Front 55

U

Back 55

Restore the current line to its state before the cursor last moved to it.

Front 56

[count] W

Back 56

Move forward count bigwords.

Front 57

[buffer] [count] X

Back 57

Delete count characters before the cursor, on the current line. If buffer is specified, “yank” the deleted text into buffer.

Front 58

[buffer] [count] Y

Back 58

Copy (or “yank”) count lines into buffer.

Front 59

ZZ

Back 59

Write the file and exit vi if there are no more files to edit. Entering two “quit” commands in a row ignores any remaining file to edit.

Front 60

[count] [[

Back 60

Back up count section boundaries.

Front 61

[count] ]]

Back 61

Move forward count section boundaries.

Front 62

^

Back 62

Move to the first non-blank character on the current line.

Front 63

[count] _

Back 63

Move down count - 1 lines, to the first non-blank character.

Front 64

[count] a

Back 64

Enter input mode, appending the text after the cursor. If a count argument is given, the characters input are repeated count -1 more times.

Front 65

[count] b

Back 65

Move backwards count words.

Front 66

[buffer] [count] c motion

Back 66

Change the region of text described by count and motion. If buffer is specified, “yank” the changed text into buffer.

Front 67

[buffer] [count] d motion

Back 67

Delete the region of text described by count and motion. If buffer is specified, “yank” the deleted text into buffer.

Front 68

[count] e

Back 68

Move forward count end-of-words.

Front 69

[count] f <character>

Back 69

Search forward, count times, through the rest of the current line for <character>.

Front 70

[count] i

Back 70

Enter input mode, inserting the text before the cursor. If a count argument is given, the characters input are repeated count -1 more times.

Front 71

m <character>

Back 71

Save the current context (line and column) as <character>.