WIP: VIM Cheat Sheet

README.md

VIM Cheat Sheet

Commands

Commnad	Description
:q	quit (fails if there are unsaved changes)
:q!	quit and throw away unsaved changes
:w	write (save) the file
:wq	write (save) the file and exit
:x	write (save) the file and exit

Cursor Movement

Commnad	Description
H	move to top of screen
M	move to middle of screen
L	move to bottom of screen
w	jump forwards to the start of a word
W	jump forwards to the start of a word (words can contain punctuation)
e	jump forwards to the end of a word
E	jump forwards to the end of a word (words can contain punctuation)
b	jump backwards to the start of a word
B	jump backwards to the start of a word (words can contain 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
G	go to the last line of the document
<number>G	go to line number (e.g. 5G goes to line 5)

Inserting/Appending Text

Commnad	Description
i	insert before the cursor
I	insert at the beginning of the line
a	append (insert) after the cursor
A	append (insert) at the end of the line
o	open (append) a new line below the current line
O	open (append) a new line above the current line
ea	append (insert) at the end of the word
ESC	exit insert mode

Copy and Paste

Commnad	Description
yy	yank (copy) a line
<number>yy	yank (copy) a number of lines (e.g. 2yy copies 2 lines)
yw	yank (copy) the characters of the word from the cursor position to the start of the next word
y$	yank (copy) to end of line
p	put (paste) the clipboard after cursor
P	put (paste) before cursor
dd	delete (cut) a line
<number>dd	delete (cut) a number of lines lines (e.g. 2dd deletes 2 lines)
dw	delete (cut) the characters of the word from the cursor position to the start of the next word
D	delete (cut) to the end of the line
d$	delete (cut) to the end of the line
x	delete (cut) character

Configure VIM for shell scripting

• syntax: on or :set syntax=sh - turns on syntax highlighting.

  Note: For this feature to work the file you are editing must have a shebang indicating the file is a shell script (e.g. #!/bin/bash).

• :set hlsearch - turns on the highlight search results.

• :set tabstop=4 - the value to 4 (the default is 8).

• :set autoindent - causes VIM to indent a new line the same amount as the line just typed.