Tutorial - vim - Basics

Tutorial
Vim (vi Improved)
More on Searching

Search

To search for a single character on the current line:

Command	Action	Looking for a semicolon
fchar	search forward, cursor lands on char	f;
tchar	search forward, cursor lands on character before char	t;
Fchar	search backward, cursor lands on char	F;
tchar	search forward, cursor lands on character after char	T;

To search forward for a string in the file use /string to search for/
- To repeat the last search, type //
- To repeat other (previous) searches, type /, then use the up/down arrow keys (followed by Enter when you reach the desired pattern).
To search backward for a string in the file use ?'s instead of /'s.

Substitution (Replace)

Easiest is to go into command mode (with a :), use a line range for the area you wish to replace (1,$ does the whole file).

:start,ends/string to look for/replacement string/optional flags
- Optional flags:
  - g: keep looking on a line even after the string have been replaced (w/o it, only the first occurrence on a line is replaced)
  - c: confirm — for each occurrence, interactively prompt the user whether the replacement should be performed

Normal Mode Indentation

<< indents; << exdents (one tab stop in each case)
- Don't forget — you can prefix a count to perform multiples; thus3>> indents 3 tab positions

Repeat Last Change in Normal Mode

The . repeats the last normal mode change, so you can quickly change a block of lines by indenting (>>, say) the first line, then moving down a line and pressing ., and repeating.

Command Mode Indentation

For longer blocks of indentation, > is the indent command and << is the exdent command. To indent a range, you would go into command mode (:), specify the range and follow it with a >
- Thus to indent the entire file 1 tab position: :1,$>