Vim Cheat Sheet

vim.md

Cheat sheet

Splits

• :split <file>
• :<lines_height>sp <file>
• :vs <file>
• Ctrl+w+<direction> to move between splits

Remember you can use Ctrl+^(6) to switch between buffers.

Modes

• Normal - Command
• : Line (from normal)
• i/a Insert
• R Replace

Leave mode with ESC

Common patterns

• [count]operation{motion}
• operation operation: does operation on all the line (for example g~~ for caps), this happens as repeating operation gets interpreted as a line motion ($)
• ./u/redo repeat/undo/redo
• `:help

Navigation

• j/k Up and down

• h/l Left and right

• Ctrl f page down

• Ctrl b page up

• w/b move right/left one word

• W/B move right/left one word ignoring puntuaction

• 0 beginning of line

• $ end of line

• gg first line of the file

• G last line of the file

• <LINE_NUM>gg or :<LINE_NUM><Enter> specific line

• CTRL G Get information about lines

Deleting

• x/X deletes from cursor / del previous
• dw delete word
• dd deletes current line
• d + motion (j/k) deletes line + line you would have navigated to
• d + motion (0/$) deletes till the beginning/end of the line

Cut Copy Paste

• d and x don't delete, they cut
• y yank (copy), yy to fast copy line
• p/P put below/above actual line
• <REG>p put from desired register

Registers :reg <ENTER> You can use a specific register for example, black hole register "_dd. You can also use specific registers, for example "ayy to copy line to "a register, and then put from it with "ap.

You can append to a register instead of insert, using its name in caps. For example: "Ayy will append instead of replace all content.

• Unnammed:
  • "" holds text from d,c,s,x and y operations
  • "0 holds last text yanked (y)
  • "1 holds last text deleted (d) or changed (c)
• Numbered shift with each d or c

Transforming and Substituting Text

• I shift from beginning of line and go into Insert mode
• a insert after current position
• A insert after end of the line
• o/O insert on new line below/above current one
• cw change word, this can be used with a specific register
• c$ replace till the end of the line
• cc repalce line
• ~[motion] invert caps, g~~/g~$
• gU[motion]/ gu[motion] mayus or minus
• shift [direction] join lines

Search, Find, Replace

• f/F {char} Search forward/backward in line (case sensitive)
• t/T {char} same as f but places cursor before/after result
• ;/, next/previous ocurrence

For example, you can delete everything up until next ocurrence of a character with d t {char}

Search across file

• /{word} <ENTER> forward search (in command line mode)

• ?{word} <ENTER> reverse search

• n / N next/previous ocurrence

• c w to replace word, you can basicaly use d c y

• /\<is\> regexp allowed, with this example you can find only exact word

• * / # search for newxt/previous occurence of current word

• :[range]s/<word1>/<word2>/[flags] replaces occurences of word1 with word2 in current line.

• g flag to replace every ocurrence

• range 1 or more line lumbers separeted by comma

• range can also be:

• . current line

• .,$ current line till last line

• % all lines

• /PATTERN-1/,/PATTERN-2/ you could only run operations between two search results for example :/<word1>/,/<word2>/s/<replace_this_word>/<replacement_word>/g, another example would be :/word1/,$s/

Text Objects

• {operator}{a/i}{object}
• d c y
• d a w delete a word
• d/c i w delete/change inner word
• d i p delete a inner paragraph
• c i [/(/< deletes everythin inside object, you can use a instead of i to delete object too
• [ = b
• ( = p
• < = t

A usefull example is, for manipulating everything inside brackets:

• d|v|y i <bracket>, where bracket can be (, [, {, etc...
• d|v|y a <bracket> if you also want to delete the bracket

Macros

Normalize data, cleanup, change format, basically any repetable operation. Nothing more than a recorded sequence of keystrokes.

• q <nammed register: record a macro, for example q a, to stop press q.
• @ <nammed register>: apply macro
• <lineNum>,<lineNum>normal @ <nammedregister> to apply to multiple lines

Best practices:

• Noralize the cursor position with 0
• Perform edits and operations
• Position your cursor in next line enable easy replays, for example with j

Visual Mode

• v characterwise visual mode

• V linewise visual mode

• Ctrl v blockwise visual mode

• g v rapidly select previous selection

• > >> indent

• {motions} to highlight

• {operations} affect highlighted text

• If you want to highlight to both sides of the cursor, first move to the beginning of your selection with o. You can do the opposite with O.

• You can use text objects to operate with highlights, for example v a p to highlight a paragraph

• You can use insert yank change replace xdelete join u/U upper/lower case, </> shift left/right.

• You can perform commands over selected area, for example, if you highlight an area in visual mode and press :, you can perform a substitution with s/word1/word2/g

• Center text with :ce, you can also do :right and :left

Vim Customization/Settings

• ~/.vimrc, you can make comments with ".
• :h option-list check all options

Helpful options:

• set history=1000: keep 1000 items in history
• set ruler: show cursor position
• set showcmd: show incomplete commands
• set wildmenu: shows menu when using tab completion
• set scrolloff=5: how many lines to keep above the cursor
• set hlsearch: highligh search results
• set incsearch: highlight incremental searchs
• set ignorecase and set smartcase: ignore case if uppercase not in search term
• set number: set column number
• set ai: set auto indent
• set si: smart indent
• set bg=light/dark
• color <schema>, you can install custom ones in ~/.vim/colors
• map <F2> i<your_name>: create a macro for f2, you can do it with multiple keys
• let mapleader="<key>": by default \
• map <leader>w :w!: now you can use \ w

Buffers

• Editing multiple files: vim file1 file2 or vim file-*
• :buffers / :ls to see opened files
• :buffer/b <num> to change between files