Chapter 6. The vim Editor

6. The vim Editor

IN THIS CHAPTER

Tutorial: Creating and Editing a File with vim	147
Introduction to vim Features	154
Online Help	154
Command Mode: Moving the Cursor	160
Input Mode	163
Command Mode: Deleting and Changing Text	165
Searching and Substituting	168
Yank, Put, and Delete Commands	175
The General-Purpose Buffer	176
Reading and Writing Files	178
The .vimrc Startup File	180

This chapter begins with a history and description of vi, the original, powerful, sometimes cryptic, interactive, visually oriented text editor. The chapter continues with a tutorial that explains how to use vim (vi improveda vi clone supplied with Mac OS X 10.3 and later and available for most UNIX distributions) to create and edit a file. Much of the tutorial and the balance of the chapter apply to vi and other vi clones. Following the tutorial, the chapter delves into the details of many vim commands and explains how to use parameters to customize vim to meet your needs. It concludes with a quick reference/summary of vim commands. The vim home page is www.vim.org.

Mac OS X 10.2 and earlier used the nvi clone of vi. Not all of this chapter applies to nvi, although both vim and nvi are largely compatible with vi.