Preface
Scope of This Book
How the Material Is Presented
Discussion of vi Commands
Conventions
Keystrokes
Cautions, Notes, and Tips
Problem Checklists
What You Need to Know Before Starting
Using Code Examples
O’Reilly Online Learning
How to Contact Us
About the Previous Editions
About the Eighth Edition
What’s New
Versions
Acknowledgments from the Sixth Edition
Acknowledgments from the Seventh Edition
Acknowledgments for the Eighth Edition
Part I. vi and Vim Fundamentals
1. Introducing vi and Vim
Text Editors and Text Editing
Text Editors
Text Editing
A Brief Historical Perspective
Opening and Closing Files
Opening a File from the Command Line
Opening a File from the GUI
Problems Opening Files
Modus Operandi
Saving and Quitting a File
Quitting Without Saving Edits
Problems Saving Files
Exercises
2. Simple Editing
vi Commands
Moving the Cursor in Command Mode
Single Movements
Numeric Arguments
Movement Within a Line
Movement by Text Blocks
Simple Edits
Inserting New Text
Appending Text
Changing Text
Changing Case
Deleting Text
Moving Text
Copying Text
Repeating or Undoing Your Last Command
More Ways to Insert Text
Numeric Arguments for Insert Commands
Joining Two Lines with J
Problems with vi Commands
Mode Indicators
Review of Basic vi Commands
3. Moving Around in a Hurry
Movement by Screens
Scrolling the Screen
Repositioning the Screen with z
Redrawing the Screen
Movement Within a Screen
Movement by Line
Movement by Text Blocks
Movement by Searches
Repeating Searches
Current Line Searches
Movement by Line Number
The G (Go To) Command
Review of vi Motion Commands
4. Beyond the Basics
More Command Combinations
Options When Starting vi and Vim
Advancing to a Specific Place
Read-Only Mode
Recovering a Buffer
Making Use of Registers
Recovering Deletions
Yanking to Named Registers
Marking Your Place
Other Advanced Edits
Review of Register and Marking Commands
5. Introducing the ex Editor
ex Commands
Exercise: The ex Editor
Problem Getting to Visual Mode
Editing with ex
Line Addresses
Defining a Range of Lines
Line-Addressing Symbols
Search Patterns
Redefining the Current Line Position
Global Searches
Combining ex Commands
Saving and Exiting Files
Renaming the Buffer
Saving Part of a File
Appending to a Saved File
Copying a File into Another File
Editing Multiple Files
Invoking Vim on Multiple Files
Using the Argument List
Calling in New Files
Filename Shortcuts
Switching Files from Command Mode
Edits Between Files
ex Command Summaries
6. Global Replacement
The Substitute Command
Confirming Substitutions
Doing Things Globally Across the File
Context-Sensitive Replacement
Pattern-Matching Rules
Metacharacters Used in Search Patterns
POSIX Bracket Expressions
Metacharacters Used in Replacement Strings
More Substitution Tricks
Pattern-Matching Examples
Search for General Class of Words
Block Move by Patterns
More Examples
A Final Look at Pattern Matching
Deleting an Unknown Block of Text
Switching Items in a Textual Database
Using :g to Repeat a Command
Collecting Lines
7. Advanced Editing
Customizing vi and Vim
The :set Command
The .exrc File
Alternate Environments
Some Useful Options
Executing Unix Commands
Filtering Text Through a Command
Saving Commands
Word Abbreviation
Using the map Command
Mapping with a Leader
Protecting Keys from Interpretation by ex
A Complex Mapping Example
More Examples of Mapping Keys
Mapping Keys for Insert Mode
Mapping Function Keys
Mapping Other Special Keys
Mapping Multiple Input Keys
@-Functions
Executing Registers from ex
Using ex Scripts
Looping in a Shell Script
Here Documents
Sorting Text Blocks: A Sample ex Script
Comments in ex Scripts
Beyond ex
Editing Program Source Code
Indentation Control
A Special Search Command
Using Tags
Enhanced Tags
Part II. Vim
8. Vim (vi Improved): Overview and Improvements over vi
About Vim
Overview
Author and History
Why Vim?
Compare and Contrast with vi
Categories of Features
Philosophy
Aids and Easy Modes for New Users
Built-In Help
Startup and Initialization Options
Command-Line Options
Behaviors Associated to Command Name
System and User Configuration Files
Environment Variables
New Motion Commands
Visual Mode Motion
Extended Regular Expressions
Extended Undo
Incremental Searching
Left-Right Scrolling
Summary
9. Graphical Vim (gvim)
General Introduction to gvim
Starting gvim
Using the Mouse
Useful Menus
Customizing Scrollbars, Menus, and Toolbars
Scrollbars
Menus
Toolbars
Tooltips
gvim in Microsoft Windows
gvim in the X Window System
Running gvim in Microsoft Windows WSL
Installing gvim in WSL 2
Installing an X Server for Windows
Configuring the X Server for Windows
GUI Options and Command Synopsis
10. Multiple Windows in Vim
Initiating Multiwindow Editing
Multiwindow Initiation from the Command Line
Multiwindow Editing Inside Vim
Opening Windows
New Windows
Options During Splits
Conditional Split Commands
Window Command Summary
Moving Around Windows (Getting Your Cursor from Here to There)
Moving Windows Around
Moving Windows (Rotate or Exchange)
Moving Windows and Changing Their Layout
Window Move Commands: Synopsis
Resizing Windows
Window Resize Commands
Window Sizing Options
Resizing Command Synopsis
Buffers and Their Interaction with Windows
Vim’s Special Buffers
Hidden Buffers
Buffer Commands
Buffer Command Synopsis
Playing Tag with Windows
Tabbed Editing
Closing and Quitting Windows
Summary
11. Vim Enhancements for Programmers
Folding and Outlining (Outline Mode)
The Fold Commands
Manual Folding
Outlining
A Few Words About the Other Fold Methods
Auto and Smart Indenting
Vim autoindent Extensions to vi’s autoindent
smartindent
cindent
indentexpr
A Final Word on Indentation
Keyword and Dictionary Word Completion
Insertion Completion Commands
Some Final Comments on Vim Autocompletion
Tag Stacking
Syntax Highlighting
Getting Started
Customization
Rolling Your Own
Compiling and Checking Errors with Vim
More Uses for the Quickfix List Window
Some Final Thoughts on Vim for Writing Programs
12. Vim Scripts
What’s Your Favorite Color (Scheme)?
Conditional Execution
Variables
The execute Command
Defining Functions
A Nice Vim Piggybacking Trick
Tuning a Vim Script with Global Variables
Arrays
Dynamic File Type Configuration Through Scripting
Autocommands
Checking Options
Buffer Variables
The exists() Function
Autocommands and Groups
Deleting Autocommands
Some Additional Thoughts About Vim Scripting
A Useful Vim Script Example
More About Variables
Expressions
Extensions
A Few More Comments About autocmd
Internal Functions
Resources
13. Other Cool Stuff in Vim
Spell It! (i-t)
For a Different Take on Words, Try Thesaurus
Editing Binary Files
Digraphs: Non-ASCII Characters
Editing Files in Other Places
Navigating and Changing Directories
Backups with Vim
HTML Your Text
What’s the Difference?
viminfo: Now, Where Was I?
The viminfo Option
The mksession Command
What’s My Line (Size)?
Abbreviations of Vim Commands and Options
A Few Quickies (Not Necessarily Vim-Specific)
More Resources
14. Some Vim Power Techniques
Several Convenience Maps
Exiting Vim Simplified
Resize Your Window
Double Your Fun
Moving into the Fast Lane
Finding a Hard-to-Remember Command
Analyzing a Famous Speech
Some More Use Cases
Hitting the Speed Limit
Enhancing the Status Line
Summary
Part III. Vim in the Larger Milieu
15. Vim as IDE: Some Assembly Required
Plug-In Managers
Finding Just the Right Plug-In
Why Do We Want an IDE?
Doing It Yourself
EditorConfig: Consistent Text Editing Setup
NERDTree: File Tree Traversal Within Vim
nerdtree-git-plug-in: NERDTree with Git Status Indicators
Fugitive: Running Git from Within Vim
Completion
Termdebug: Use GDB Directly Within Vim
All-in-One IDEs
Coding Is Great, but What If I’m a Writer?
Conclusion
16. vi Is Everywhere
Introduction
Improving the Command-Line Experience
Sharing Multiple Shells
The readline Library
The Bash Shell
Other Programs
The .inputrc File
Other Unix Shells
The Z Shell (zsh)
Keep As Much History As You Can
Command-Line Editing: Some Closing Thoughts
Windows PowerShell
Developer Tools
The Clewn GDB Driver
CGDB: Curses GDB
Vim Inside Visual Studio
Vim for Visual Studio Code
Unix Utilities
More or Less?
screen
And …, Browsers!
Wasavi
Vim + Chromium = Vimium
vi for MS Word and Outlook
Honorable Mention: Tools with Some vi Features
Google Mail
Microsoft PowerToys
Summary
17. Epilogue
Part IV. Appendixes
A. The vi, ex, and Vim Editors
B. Setting Options
C. The Lighter Side of vi
D. vi and Vim: Source Code and Building
Index
