ViM CheatSheet

Contents

ViM Cheat Sheet

| h, j, k, l | Move cursor left, down, up, right | | w | Jump to start of next word (W - words inc. punctuation) | | e | Jump to end of next word (E - words inc. punctuation) | | b | Jump to start of previous word (B - words inc. punctuation) | | 0 | Jump to the start of the line | | ^ | Jump to the first non-blank character of the line | | $ | Jump to the end of the line | | }, { | Jump to next, previous paragraph |

Cut and paste

| yy | Yank (copy) a line (2yy - 2 lines) | | yw | Yank (copy) word | | y$ | Yank (copy) to end of line | | p | Paste the clipboard after cursor (P - before) | | dd | Delete a line (2dd - 2 lines) | | dw | Delete word | | D | Delete to the end of the line | | d$ | Delete to the end of the line | | x | Delete character |

Marks

| m[a-z] | Create a mark labelled a,b,c..z | | '[a-z] | Jump to mark a.b.c..z (or use in range) |

Editing

| i | Insert before cursor (I - beginning of line) | | a | Insert after cursor (A - end of line) | | o | Append (open) a new line below the current line | | O | Append (open) a new line above the current line | | ea | Insert (append) at the end of the word | | Esc | Exit insert mode | | r | Replace a single character (R - replace until Esc.) | | J | Join line below to the current one | | cc | Replace entire line | | cw | Replace to the end of the word | | c$ | Replace to the end of the line | | s | Delete character and substitute text | | S | Delete line and substitute text (same as cc) | | xp | Transpose two letters (delete and paste) | | u | Undo (Ctrl+r - redo) | | . | Repeat last command | | ~ | Switch case | | guw gUw | Lower, upper case from current char to end word |

Operator - Text Object - Motion

Operator: delete, change, visual select , replace

Text Object: inside, around

Motion:

| w | word | | W | WORD (includes special chars) | | b or ( | block (of parentheses) | | B or { | BLOCK (of curly braces) | | [ | brackets | | ' | single quotes | | " | double quotes | | t | tag (html or xml ) | | p | paragraph | | s | sentence |

eg.

| di{ | delete text inside the { } brackets | | vo" | visual select of text inside and including "'s |

Macros

| q[a-z] | Start recording macro named a,b,c..z. q ends recording | | @[a-z] | Replay macro named a,b,c..z |

Search Replace

:<range>s/<search string>/<replace string>[/cgiI]

| c | Confirm each replacement | | g | All instances on a line | | i | Ignore case (I - don't ignore case) |

Range

| num | An absolute line number | | . | The current line | | $ | The last line in the file | | % | The whole file. | | 't | Position of mark "t" | | n..m | Lines numbered n to m inclusive |

Escaped Characters

| . | Any character except new line (.* - includes empty lines) | | \. | . character | | \s | Whitespace character (\S - non-whitespace character) | | \d | Digit (\D - non-digit) | | \x | Hex digit (\X - non-hex digit) | | \o | Octal digit (\O - non-octal digit) | | \h | Head of word character (a,b,c...z,A,B,C...Z and _) (\H - non-head of word character) | | \p | Printable character (\P - excluding digits) | | \w | Word character (\W - non-word character) | | \a | Alphabetic character (\A - non-alphabetic character) | | \l | Lowercase character (\L - non-lowercase character, more than A..Z) | | \u | Uppercase character (\U - non-uppercase character, more than a..z) | | * | Matches 0 or more of the preceding characters, ranges or metacharacters | | \+ | Matches 1 or more of the preceding characters | | \= | Matches 0 or 1 more of the preceding characters | | \{n,m} | Matches from n to m of the preceding character | | \{n} | Matches exactly n times of the preceding characters | | \{,m} | Matches at most m (from 0 to m) of the preceding characters | | \{n,} | Matches at least n of of the preceding characters | | \{-} | Matches 0 or more of the preceding atom, as few as possible | | \{-n,m} | Matches 1 or more of the preceding characters | | \{-n,} | Matches at lease or more of the preceding characters | | \{-,m} | Matches 1 or more of the preceding characters |

String Ranges

| [0123abAC] | Matches any of the characters inside the brackets | | [a-zA-Z0-9] | Matches lowercase characters, uppercase characters and digits | | [^a-zA-Z0-9] | Matches anything but [a-zA-Z0-9] "^" will lose its special meaning if it's not the first character in the range. |

Using Matched Characters In Replacement String

Search strings inside "(" and ")" can be used in replacement string reference as \1, \2 etc

Replacement String Special Character

| \0 | The whole matched pattern | | \L | The following characters are made lowercase (terminate with \E or \e) | | \U | The following characters are made uppercase (terminate with \E or \e) | | \l | Next character made lowercase | | \u | Next character made uppercase | | \r | Split line in two at this point | | & | The whole matched pattern | | ~ | The previous substitute string |

Alternations

" | " can combine several expressions into one. The first one matched will be used. eg.(Date: | Subject: | From:)(\s.*)` - matches Date: or Subject: first then whitespace.

Regexp Operator Precedence

| 1 | Grouping | \(\)[a-zA-Z0-9] | | 2 | Quantifiers | \=,\+,*,\{n} etc. | | 3 | Characters | Sequence of characters/metacharacters| | 4 | Alternation |[a-zA-Z0-9]` |

Global Command - Global search and execution

:<range>g[!]/<pattern>/<cmd>

Execute the Ex command (default ":p") on the lines within where . ! only line which don't match.

Example Ex commands :s[ubstitute], :co , :d[elete], :w[rite] etc.

eg. :g/^$/d - delete all empty lines in a file. eg. :g/^$/,/./-j - reduce multiple blank lines to a single blank. eg. :10,20g/^/ mo 10 - reverse the order of the lines starting from the line 10 up to the line 20.

Misc

:set ic - ignore case, :set noic, :set ic! - toggle.

vimrc

.vimrc file:

set hlsearch
set incsearch
set ic

" Lets put all the filename~ backup and swp / un file in the temp folder.
set backupdir=/tmp
set directory=/tmp
set undodir=/tmp

" 3 Character tab and convert these to spaces.
set tabstop=3 softtabstop=0 expandtab shiftwidth=3
let b:did_indent = 1

" Map F2 to auto complete words in inset mode and to clear the last search otherwise.
map! <F2> <C-N>
map  <F2> :noh<CR>

" Enable spell check.
set spell spelllang=en_gb
set spellfile=~/.vimspellfile.add
set spellcapcheck=""

map <C-n> ]s
map <C-p> [s
map <C-l> z=
map <C-k> zg

" Stop the bloody ping on error and flash the screen instead.
set vb

" set columns=110

map <C-D> 110A-<ESC>A<CR><ESC>

" Python (.py) specific indents
au BufNewFile,BufRead *.py
    \ set tabstop=3 |
    \ set softtabstop=3 |
    \ set shiftwidth=3 |
    \ set textwidth=109 |
    \ set expandtab |
    \ set autoindent |
    \ set fileformat=unix

" set foldmethod=indent
" map <C-F> zc
" map <A-left> zc