15 Vim shortcuts that will make your life easier

#devops #linux #tutorials

Introduction

If you ever installed Linux in your life, I'm sure you might have come across Vim.

Vim is a command-line based text editor. It's a great tool but I won't say that it's the best text editor in Linux as it would lead to a never-ending debate.

Vim is actually an improved version of the old vi editor. It comes with many new features including multi-level undo, multiple window support, visual mode and command-line completion.

If you're using it for the first time, you may have hard time trying to exit Vim.
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What? Don't you believe me?

Here's the proof :

Stack Overflow

@stackoverflow

Stack Overflow launched in 2008, demonstrating what’s possible with the internet: an open community that gives people knowledge at their fingertips.

Since then, over 1.8M people have visited us just to learn how to exit Vim. #Web30 #ForTheWeb

stackoverflow.com/questions/1182…

02:00 AM - 13 Mar 2019

In this blog, I'll list down 15 shortcuts that will save you a lot of time while working with vim.

Shortcut key	Function
w	To `move forward` by one word(you need to be in normal mode).
b	To `move backward` by one word(you need to be in normal mode).
gg	To `move to the beginning` of the file.
G	To `move to the end` of the file(last line).
dw	To `delete the word`, cursor is positioned upon.
dd	To `delete the line`, cursor is positioned upon.
d2d	To `delete 2 lines`, starting from the line, the cursor is upon. You can replace '2' by any number and delete any number of lines.
u	To `undo` the last operation performed.
Ctrl+r	To `redo` the last operation performed.
/sample_text	To `search` for the 'sample_text' in the file. Use `n` to move to next occurrence and `N` to move to the previous occurrence of the text(in Command mode).
:%s/old/new/g	`Replaces` all the occurrences of the `old` text with `new` text(in Command mode).
:q!	To `quit the file discarding all the changes` made to the file(in Command mode).
:wq	To `save the file` and `quit`(in Command mode).
:w sample_filename	To `save` the file with filename 'sample_filename'(in Command mode).
:q	To `quit` Vim. It fails when changes has been made to file(in Command mode).