Vim notes

Symbols and meanings

  • % → current file. An example: :so % → Source the current file
  • $ → end of line
  • . → Current line An example: :.!sh → Pipe current line to sh and replace it with the output

Entering !! in normal mode is translated to :.! I. e. Typing !!date in normal mode replaces current line with the date.

Tips

  • :e[dit] → Edit the current file. This is useful to re-edit the current file, when it has been changed outside of Vim. :e! Force reload file
  • :help index → Get all default mappings

Navigation

  • h j k l → left, down, up, right
  • * → Next whole word under cursor (previous #)
  • e → Forward to the end of word. E can contain punctuation
  • w → Move forward to the beginning of a word. W Same as w, but special characters are treated as part of a word.
  • b → Works as w, but backwards
  • {,} → Jump by paragraphs
  • (,) → Jump by sentences
  • G → Jump to the end of the file
  • 1G → Jump to the beginning of the file (same as gg)
  • 50G → Jump to line 50
  • 0 → Beginning of line
  • _ or ^ → first non-blank character of the line
  • g_ → last non-blank character of the line
  • fX → next character X. FX previous. ; repeat , , repeat in reverse
  • tX → tili next X (similar to above, but the cursor is before X)
  • H → Jump to the top of the screen
  • M → Jump to the middle of the screen
  • L → Jump to the bottom of the screen

Scrolling

  • 10 <PageUp> or 10<CTRL-B> → Move 10 pages up
  • 5 <PageDown> or 5<CTRL-F> → Move 5 pages down.
  • zz → scroll the line with the cursor to the center of the screen
  • zt → to the top
  • zb → to the bottom

Terminal buffers

  • :te[rm[inal]] command
  • :b# switch buffer
  • :ls list buffers
  • :buff 1 or :b1 switch to buffer 1

List of the commands

Common meaning of letters in the commands

  • w → word
  • i → inner
Command
dd Delete one line
d Delete selection
x Delete character under cursor
d+ Delete 2 lines
:%d or :1,$d Delete the whole of the file
dw, diw Delete what that the cursor is over
di( Delete inner brackets. da( → including brackets
:r[ead] !date Execute commend and put content into editor
. Repeat the last operation
gU Uppercase the selection, gu → lower
% Jump to matching bracket { } [ ] ( )
:%!column -t Put text in columns
:%!sort Sort the whole file
:'<,'>!grep text Keep lines that contains text
:'<,'>!sort Sort selected lines
:eariler 1m State from the 1 min before
ga Display hex, ascii value of character under cursor
g8 Display hex value of utf-8 character under cursor
ciw Change inner word
yiw Yank inner word
viwp Select word and then replace it with previously yanked text
rX replace every character in selection or under cursor with X
guiw Lower case word
guu Lowercase line
gUU Uppercase line
= Indent the selection
=% Indent the current braces
G=gg indent entire document
ZZ Write current file, if modified, and exit (same as :wq)
ZQ Quit current file and exit (same as :q!)
:so % Source current file
@: Execute last command again

Status line

:set statusline=%<%f%h%m%r%=%b\ 0x%B\ \ %l,%c%V\ %P

Visual Mode

  • V → Selection by lines
  • v → Selection follows the cursor
  • Ctrl+v → Block selection
    • When selected block you can applay changes to each line by typing I editing and finally pressing Esc

Enter Insert Mode

  • I → At the first non white character of the line
  • i → On the left of the cursor
  • A → At the very end of the line
  • a → On the right of the cursor
  • c → Delete selection and enter insert mode
  • o → Create new line below and enter insert mode
  • O → Create new line above and enter insert mode

Split the editor

  • :sp <filename> → Vertically
  • :vs <filename> → Horizontally
  • :set splitbelow, :set splitright

Markers

  • :marks → list of marks
  • ma → set current position for mark a
  • `a → jump to the cursor position of mark a
  • 'a → jump to the beginning of a line of a mark a
  • y`a → yank text to position of mark a
  • `` → Return to the cursor position before the latest jump
  • `. → Jump to the last changed line.

Recording macros

  1. qa → Start recording macro under letter a
  2. q → Stop recording
  3. @a → Play the macro saved under letter a
  4. @@ → Play the last macro

Searching

  • :%s/Plug.*$// → Search and delete all lines that starts from Plug
  • :%s/foo/bar/gc → Replace all occurrence of foo by bar with confirmation
  • '<,'>:s/find/replacewith/ Replace selection
  • /pattern → search for pattern then enter and n next N previous match
  • ?pattern → search backward for pattern

Registers

  • :reg → print all registers
  • "ap → paste the register a , if the macro is recorded then it will paste it
  • "xy → yank into register x
  • :let @a = "kkll" → set a macro from the command mode
  • :let @A='i' → append to register a
  • :%normal @a → execute the macro on all lines of the current file
  • :'<,'>normal @a → execute the macro on a visually selected lines
  • :10,20 normal @a → execute the macro for lines from 10 to 20
  • :g/pattern/ normal @a → Search for pattern and execute macro for it

Functions - An example

Function definition

function! CalculateAge()
    normal 03wdei^R=2012-^R"^M^[0j 
endfunction

Key banding to function

nnoremap <leader>a :call CalculateAge()<CR>

Preloading vim with macros like

let @a='03wdei^R=2012-^R"^M^[0j'

Call function from the command mode

:call CalculateAge()

Configuration

The config file is located at .config/nvim/init.vim

if empty(glob('~/.local/share/nvim/site/autoload/plug.vim'))
  silent !curl -fLo ~/.local/share/nvim/site/autoload/plug.vim --create-dirs
    \ https://raw.githubusercontent.com/junegunn/vim-plug/master/plug.vim
  autocmd VimEnter * PlugInstall --sync | source $MYVIMRC
endif

call plug#begin('~/.vim/plugged')

  Plug 'junegunn/fzf'

  Plug 'neovim/nvim-lspconfig'
  Plug 'neoclide/coc.nvim', {'branch': 'release'}
  
  Plug 'vim-airline/vim-airline'
  Plug 'vim-airline/vim-airline-themes'
  
  Plug 'vim-syntastic/syntastic'
  Plug 'tokorom/syntastic-swiftlint.vim'
  
call plug#end()
  • set relativenumber
  • set encoding=utf-8
  • syntax on
  • map za :FZF<CR> → fuzzy finder over za

Indentation setup

  • set tabstop=2 shiftwidth=2 expandtab
  • filetype plugin indent on
let g:syntastic_swift_checkers = ['swiftlint', 'swiftpm']
lua << EOF
  local lspconfig = require('lspconfig')
  lspconfig.sourcekit.setup{}
EOF

Rename current file


function! RenameFile()
    let old_name = expand('%')
    let new_name = input('New file name: ', expand('%'), 'file')
    if new_name != '' && new_name != old_name
        exec ':saveas ' . new_name
        exec ':silent !rm ' . old_name
        exec ':bd ' . old_file
        redraw!
    endif
endfunction
map <leader>n :call RenameFile()<cr>

© Artur Gurgul, 2024 — Public Domain Licence