100 Vim commands every programmer should know

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.

Written by Jean-Baptiste Jung • Published on June 30th, 2008

Basics

:e filename Open filename for edition

:w Save file

:q Exit Vim

:w! Exit Vim without saving

Search

/word Search word from top to bottom

?word Search word from bottom to top

/jo[ha]n Search john or joan

/\< the Search the, theatre or then

/the\> Search the or breathe

/\< the\> 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

:nly 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 [e-mail] Define mail as abbreviation of [e-mail]

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