100 Vim commands every programmer should know

Posted by Jean-Baptiste Jung on Jun 30, 2008 in Web development • 74 comments

Since the 70’s, Vi is one of the programmer’s best friend. Nevermind you’re new to Vi or not, here’s a big list of 100 useful commands, organized by topic, which will make your coder life better.

Search

/word	Search “word” from top to bottom
?word	Search “word” from bottom to top
/jo[ha]n	Search “john” or “joan”
/\<>	Search “the”, “theatre” or “then”
/the\>	Search “the” or “breathe”
/\<>	Search “the”
/\< ….\>	Search all words of 4 letters
/\/	Search “fred” but not “alfred” or “frederick”
/fred\|joe	Search “fred” or “joe”
/\<\d\d\d\d\>	Search exactly 4 digits
/^\n\{3}	Find 3 empty lines
:bufdo /searchstr/	Search in all open files

Replace

:%s/old/new/g	Replace all occurences of “old” by “new” in file
:%s/old/new/gw	Replace all occurences with confirmation
:2,35s/old/new/g	Replace all occurences between lines 2 and 35
:5,$s/old/new/g	Replace all occurences from line 5 to EOF
:%s/^/hello/g	Replace the begining of each line by “hello”
:%s/$/Harry/g	Replace the end of each line by “Harry”
:%s/onward/forward/gi	Replace “onward” by “forward” , case unsensitive
:%s/ *$//g	Delete all white spaces
:g/string/d	Delete all lines containing “string”
:v/string/d	Delete all lines containing which didn't contain “string”
:s/Bill/Steve/	Replace the first occurence of “Bill” by “Steve” in current line
:s/Bill/Steve/g	Replace “Bill” by “Steve” in current line
:%s/Bill/Steve/g	Replace “Bill” by “Steve” in all the file
:%s/\r//g	Delete DOS carriage returns (^M)
:%s/\r/\r/g	Transform DOS carriage returns in returns
:%s#<[^>]\+>##g	Delete HTML tags but keeps text
:%s/^\(.*\)\n\1$/\1/	Delete lines which appears twice
Ctrl+a	Increment number under the cursor
Ctrl+x	Decrement number under cursor
ggVGg?	Change text to Rot13

Case

Vu	Lowercase line
VU	Uppercase line
g~~	Invert case
vEU	Switch word to uppercase
vE~	Modify word case
ggguG	Set all text to lowercase
:set ignorecase	Ignore case in searches
:set smartcase	Ignore case in searches excepted if an uppercase letter is used
:%s/\<./\u&/g	Sets first letter of each word to uppercase
:%s/\<./\l&/g	Sets first letter of each word to lowercase
:%s/.*/\u&	Sets first letter of each line to uppercase
:%s/.*/\l&	Sets first letter of each line to lowercase

Read/Write files

:1,10 w outfile	Saves lines 1 to 10 in outfile
:1,10 w >> outfile	Appends lines 1 to 10 to outfile
:r infile	Insert the content of infile
:23r infile	Insert the content of infile under line 23

File explorer

:e .	Open integrated file explorer
:Sex	Split window and open integrated file explorer
:browse e	Graphical file explorer
:ls	List buffers
:cd ..	Move to parent directory
:args	List files
:args *.php	Open file list
:grep expression *.php	Returns a list of .php files contening expression
gf	Open file name under cursor

Interact with Unix

:!pwd	Execute the “pwd” unix command, then returns to Vi
!!pwd	Execute the “pwd” unix command and insert output in file
:sh	Temporary returns to Unix
$exit	Retourns to Vi

Alignment

:%!fmt	Align all lines
!}fmt	Align all lines at the current position
5!!fmt	Align the next 5 lines

Tabs

:tabnew	Creates a new tab
gt	Show next tab
:tabfirst	Show first tab
:tablast	Show last tab
:tabm n(position)	Rearrange tabs
:tabdo %s/foo/bar/g	Execute a command in all tabs
:tab ball	Puts all open files in tabs

Window spliting

:e filename	Edit filename in current window
:split filename	Split the window and open filename
ctrl-w up arrow	Puts cursor in top window
ctrl-w ctrl-w	Puts cursor in next window
ctrl-w_	Maximise current window
ctrl-w=	Gives the same size to all windows
10 ctrl-w+	Add 10 lines to current window
:vsplit file	Split window vertically
:sview file	Same as :split in readonly mode
:hide	Close current window
:only	Close all windows, excepted current
:b 2	Open #2 in this window

Auto-completion

Ctrl+n Ctrl+p (in insert mode)	Complete word
Ctrl+x Ctrl+l	Complete line
:set dictionary=dict	Define dict as a dictionnary
Ctrl+x Ctrl+k	Complete with dictionnary

Marks

mk	Marks current position as k
‘k	Moves cursor to mark k
d’k	Delete all until mark k

Abbreviations

:ab mail mail@provider.org

Define mail as abbreviation of mail@provider.org

Text indent

:set autoindent	Turn on auto-indent
:set smartindent	Turn on intelligent auto-indent
:set shiftwidth=4	Defines 4 spaces as indent size
ctrl-t, ctrl-d	Indent/un-indent in insert mode
>>	Indent
<<	Un-indent

Syntax highlighting

:syntax on	Turn on syntax highlighting
:syntax off	Turn off syntax highlighting
:set syntax=perl	Force syntax highlighting