*09.2* Using the mouse Standards are wonderful. In Microsoft Windows, you can use the mouse to select text in a standard manner. The X Window system also has a standard system for using the mouse. Unfortunately, these two standards are not the same. Fortunately, you can customize Vim. You can make the behavior of the mouse work like an X Window system mouse or a Microsoft Windows mouse. The following command makes the mouse behave like an X Window mouse: > :behave xterm The following command makes the mouse work like a Microsoft Windows mouse: > :behave mswin The default behavior of the mouse on UNIX systems is xterm. The default behavior on a Microsoft Windows system is selected during the installation process. For details about what the two behaviors are, see |:behave|. Here follows a summary. XTERM MOUSE BEHAVIOR Left mouse click position the cursor Left mouse drag select text in Visual mode Middle mouse click paste text from the clipboard Right mouse click extend the selected text until the mouse pointer MSWIN MOUSE BEHAVIOR Left mouse click position the cursor Left mouse drag select text in Select mode (see |09.4|) Left mouse click, with Shift extend the selected text until the mouse pointer Middle mouse click paste text from the clipboard Right mouse click display a pop-up menu The mouse can be further tuned. Check out these options if you want to change the way how the mouse works: 'mouse' in which mode the mouse is used by Vim 'mousemodel' what effect a mouse click has 'mousetime' time between clicks for a double-click 'mousehide' hide the mouse while typing 'selectmode' whether the mouse starts Visual or Select mode
*09.3* The clipboard In section |04.7| the basic use of the clipboard was explained. There is one essential thing to explain about X-windows: There are actually two places to exchange text between programs. MS-Windows doesn't have this. In X-Windows there is the "current selection". This is the text that is currently highlighted. In Vim this is the Visual area (this assumes you are using the default option settings). You can paste this selection in another application without any further action. For example, in this text select a few words with the mouse. Vim will switch to Visual mode and highlight the text. Now start another gVim, without a file name argument, so that it displays an empty window. Click the middle mouse button. The selected text will be inserted. The "current selection" will only remain valid until some other text is selected. After doing the paste in the other gVim, now select some characters in that window. You will notice that the words that were previously selected in the other gVim window are displayed differently. This means that it no longer is the current selection. You don't need to select text with the mouse, using the keyboard commands for Visual mode works just as well. THE REAL CLIPBOARD Now for the other place with which text can be exchanged. We call this the "real clipboard", to avoid confusion. Often both the "current selection" and the "real clipboard" are called clipboard, you'll have to get used to that. To put text on the real clipboard, select a few different words in one of the gVims you have running. Then use the Edit/Copy menu entry. Now the text has been copied to the real clipboard. You can't see this, unless you have some application that shows the clipboard contents (e.g., KDE's klipper). Now select the other gVim, position the cursor somewhere and use the Edit/Paste menu. You will see the text from the real clipboard is inserted. USING BOTH This use of both the "current selection" and the "real clipboard" might sound a bit confusing. But it is very useful. Let's show this with an example. Use one gVim with a text file and perform these actions: - Select two words in Visual mode. - Use the Edit/Copy menu to get these words onto the clipboard. - Select one other word in Visual mode. - Use the Edit/Paste menu item. What will happen is that the single selected word is replaced with the two words from the clipboard. - Move the mouse pointer somewhere else and click the middle button. You will see that the word you just overwrote with the clipboard is inserted here. If you use the "current selection" and the "real clipboard" with care, you can do a lot of useful editing with them. USING THE KEYBOARD If you don't like using the mouse, you can access the current selection and the real clipboard with two registers. The "* register is for the current selection. To make text become the current selection, use Visual mode. For example, to select a whole line just press "V". To insert the current selection before the cursor: > "*P Notice the uppercase "P". The lowercase "p" puts the text after the cursor. The "+ register is used for the real clipboard. For example, to copy the text from the cursor position until the end of the line to the clipboard: > "+y$ Remember, "y" is yank, which is Vim's copy command. To insert the contents of the real clipboard before the cursor: > "+P It's the same as for the current selection, but uses the plus (+) register instead of the star (*) register.
*09.4* Select mode And now something that is used more often on MS-Windows than on X-Windows. But both can do it. You already know about Visual mode. Select mode is like Visual mode, because it is also used to select text. But there is an obvious difference: When typing text, the selected text is deleted and the typed text replaces it. To start working with Select mode, you must first enable it (for MS-Windows it is probably already enabled, but you can do this anyway): > :set selectmode+=mouse Now use the mouse to select some text. It is highlighted like in Visual mode. Now press a letter. The selected text is deleted, and the single letter replaces it. You are in Insert mode now, thus you can continue typing. Since typing normal text causes the selected text to be deleted, you can not use the normal movement commands "hjkl", "w", etc. Instead, use the shifted function keys. <S-Left> (shifted cursor left key) moves the cursor left. The selected text is changed like in Visual mode. The other shifted cursor keys do what you expect. <S-End> and <S-Home> also work. You can tune the way Select mode works with the 'selectmode' option.
*usr_10.txt* For Vim version 6.1. Last change: 2001 Sep 18 Making big changes In chapter 4 several ways to make small changes were explained. This chapter goes into making changes that are repeated or can affect a large amount of text. The Visual mode allows doing various things with blocks of text. Use an external program to do really complicated things. |10.1| Record and playback commands |10.2| Substitution |10.3| Command ranges |10.4| The global command |10.5| Visual block mode |10.6| Reading and writing part of a file |10.7| Formatting text |10.8| Changing case |10.9| Using an external program
*10.1* Record and playback commands The "." command repeats the preceding change. But what if you want to do something more complex than a single change? That's where command recording comes in. There are three steps: 1. The "q{register}" command starts recording keystrokes into the register named {register}. The register name must be between a and z. 2. Type your commands. 3. To finish recording, press q (without any extra character). You can now execute the macro by typing the command "@{register}". Take a look at how to use these commands in practice. You have a list of filenames that look like this: stdio.h ~ fcntl.h ~ unistd.h ~ stdlib.h ~ And what you want is the following: #include "stdio.h" ~ #include "fcntl.h" ~ #include "unistd.h" ~ #include "stdlib.h" ~ You start by moving to the first character of the first line. Next you execute the following commands: qa Start recording a macro in register a. ^ Move to the beginning of the line. i#include "<Esc> Insert the string #include " at the beginning of the line. $ Move to the end of the line. a"<Esc> Append the character double quotation mark (") to the end of the line. j Go to the next line. q Stop recording the macro. Now that you have done the work once, you can repeat the change by typing the command "@a" three times. The "@a" command can be preceded by a count, which will cause the macro to be executed that number of times. In this case you would type: > 3@a MOVE AND EXECUTE You might have the lines you want to change in various places. Just move the cursor to each location and use the "@a" command. If you have done that once, you can do it again with "@@". That's a bit easier to type. If you now execute register b with "@b", the next "@@" will use register b. If you compare the playback method with using ".", there are several differences. First of all, "." can only repeat one change. As seen in the example above, "@a" can do several changes, and move around as well. Secondly, "." can only remember the last change. Executing a register allows you to make any changes and then still use "@a" to replay the recorded commands. Finally, you can use 26 different registers. Thus you can remember 26 different command sequences to execute. USING REGISTERS The registers used for recording are the same ones you used for yank and delete commands. This allows you to mix recording with other commands to manipulate the registers. Suppose you have recorded a few commands in register n. When you execute this with "@n" you notice you did something wrong. You could try recording again, but perhaps you will make another mistake. Instead, use this trick: G Go to the end of the file. o<Esc> Create an empty line. "np Put the text from the n register. You now see the commands you typed as text in the file. {edits} Change the commands that were wrong. This is just like editing text. 0 Go to the start of the line. "ny$ Yank the corrected commands into the n register. dd Delete the scratch line. Now you can execute the corrected commands with "@n". (If your recorded commands include line breaks, adjust the last two items in the example to include all the lines). APPENDING TO A REGISTER So far we have used a lowercase letter for the register name. To append to a register, use an uppercase letter. Suppose you have recorded a command to change a word to register c. It works properly, but you would like to add a search for the next word to change. This can be done with: > qC/word<Enter>q You start with "qC", which records to the c register and appends. Thus writing to an uppercase register name means to append to the register with the same letter, but lowercase. This works both with recording and with yank and delete commands. For example, you want to collect a sequence of lines into the a register. Yank the first line with: > "aY Now move to the second line, and type: > "AY Repeat this command for all lines. The a register now contains all those lines, in the order you yanked them.
*10.2* Substitution The ":substitute" command enables you to perform string replacements on a whole range of lines. The general form of this command is as follows: > :[range]substitute/from/to/[flags] This command changes the "from" string to the "to" string in the lines specified with [range]. For example, you can change "Professor" to "Teacher" in all lines with the following command: > :%substitute/Professor/Teacher/ < Note: The :substitute command is almost never spelled out completely. Most of the time, people use the abbreviated version ":s". From here on the abbreviation will be used. The "%" before the command specifies the command works on all lines. Without a range, ":s" only works on the current line. More about ranges in the next section. By default, the ":substitute" command changes only the first occurrence on each line. For example, the preceding command changes the line: Professor Smith criticized Professor Johnson today. ~ to: Teacher Smith criticized Professor Johnson today. ~ To change every occurrence on the line, you need to add the g (global) flag. The command: > :%s/Professor/Teacher/g results in (starting with the original line): Teacher Smith criticized Teacher Johnson today. ~ Other flags include p (print), which causes the ":substitute" command to print out each line it changes. The c (confirm) flag tells ":substitute" to ask you for confirmation before it performs each substitution. Enter the following: > :%s/Professor/Teacher/c Vim finds the first occurrence of "Professor" and displays the text it is about to change. You get the following prompt: > replace with Teacher (y/n/a/q/l/^E/^Y)? At this point, you must enter one of the following answers: y Yes; make this change. n No; skip this match. a All; make this change and all remaining ones without further confirmation. q Quit; don't make any more changes. l Last; make this change and then quit. CTRL-E Scroll the text one line up. CTRL-Y Scroll the text one line down. The "from" part of the substitute command is actually a pattern. The same kind as used for the search command. For example, this command only substitutes "the" when it appears at the start of a line: > :s/^the/these/ If you are substituting with a "from" or "to" part that includes a slash, you need to put a backslash before it. A simpler way is to use another character instead of the slash. A plus, for example: > :s+one/two+one or two+
*10.3* Command ranges The ":substitute" command, and many other : commands, can be applied to a selection of lines. This is called a range. The simple form of a range is {number},{number}. For example: > :1,5s/this/that/g Executes the substitute command on the lines 1 to 5. Line 5 is included. The range is always placed before the command. A single number can be used to address one specific line: > :54s/President/Fool/ Some commands work on the whole file when you do not specify a range. To make them work on the current line the "." address is used. The ":write" command works like that. Without a range, it writes the whole file. To make it write only the current line into a file: > :.write otherfile The first line always has number one. How about the last line? The "$" character is used for this. For example, to substitute in the lines from the cursor to the end: > :.,$s/yes/no/ The "%" range that we used before, is actually a short way to say "1,$", from the first to the last line. USING A PATTERN IN A RANGE Suppose you are editing a chapter in a book, and want to replace all occurences of "grey" with "gray". But only in this chapter, not in the next one. You know that only chapter boundaries have the word "Chapter" in the first column. This command will work then: > :?^Chapter?,/^Chapter/s=grey=gray=g You can see a search pattern is used twice. The first "?^Chapter?" finds the line above the current position that matches this pattern. Thus the ?pattern? range is used to search backwards. Similarly, "/^Chapter/" is used to search forward for the start of the next chapter. To avoid confusion with the slashes, the "=" character was used in the substitute command here. A slash or another character would have worked as well. ADD AND SUBTRACT There is a slight error in the above command: If the title of the next chapter had included "grey" it would be replaced as well. Maybe that's what you wanted, but what if you didn't? Then you can specify an offset. To search for a pattern and then use the line above it: > /Chapter/-1 You can use any number instead of the 1. To address the second line below the match: > /Chapter/+2 The offsets can also be used with the other items in a range. Look at this one: > :.+3,$-5 This specifies the range that starts three lines below the cursor and ends five lines before the last line in the file. USING MARKS Instead of figuring out the line numbers of certain positions, remembering them and typing them in a range, you can use marks. Place the marks as mentioned in chapter 3. For example, use "mt" to mark the top of an area and "mb" to mark the bottom. Then you can use this range to specify the lines between the marks (including the lines with the marks): > :'t,'b VISUAL MODE AND RANGES You can select text with Visual mode. If you then press ":" to start a colon command, you will see this: > :'<,'> Now you can type the command and it will be applied to the range of lines that was visually selected. Note: When using Visual mode to select part of a line, or using CTRL-V to select a block of text, the colon commands will still apply to whole lines. This might change in a future version of Vim. The '< and '> are actually marks, placed at the start and end of the Visual selection. The marks remain at their position until another Visual selection is made. Thus you can use the "'<" command to jump to position where the Visual area started. And you can mix the marks with other items: > :'>,$ This addresses the lines from the end of the Visual area to the end of the file. A NUMBER OF LINES When you know how many lines you want to change, you can type the number and then ":". For example, when you type "5:", you will get: > :.,.+4 Now you can type the command you want to use. It will use the range "." (current line) until ".+4" (four lines down). Thus it spans five lines.
*10.4* The global command The ":global" command is one of the more powerful features of Vim. It allows you to find a match for a pattern and execute a command there. The general form is: > :[range]global/{pattern}/{command} This is similar to the ":substitute" command. But, instead of replacing the matched text with other text, the command {command} is executed. Note: The command executed for ":global" must be one that starts with a colon. Normal mode commands can not be used directly. The |:normal| command can do this for you. Suppose you want to change "foobar" to "barfoo", but only in C++ style comments. These comments start with "//". Use this command: > :g+//+s/foobar/barfoo/g This starts with ":g". That is short for ":global", just like ":s" is short for ":substitute". Then the pattern, enclosed in plus characters. Since the pattern we are looking for contains a slash, this uses the plus character to separate the pattern. Next comes the substitute command that changes "foobar" into "barfoo". The default range for the global command is the whole file. Thus no range was specified in this example. This is different from ":substitute", which works on one line without a range. The command isn't perfect, since it also matches lines where "//" appears halfway a line, and the substitution will also take place before the "//". Just like with ":substitute", any pattern can be used. When you learn more complicated patterns later, you can use them here.
*10.5* Visual block mode With CTRL-V you can start selection of a rectangular area of text. There are a few commands that do something special with the text block. There is something special about using the "$" command in Visual block mode. When the last motion command used was "$", all lines in the Visual selection will extend until the end of the line, also when the line with the cursor is shorter. This remains effective until you use a motion command that moves the cursor horizontally. Thus using "j" keeps it, "h" stops it. INSERTING TEXT The command "I{string}<Esc>" inserts the text {string} in each line, just left of the visual block. You start by pressing CTRL-V to enter visual block mode. Now you move the cursor to define your block. Next you type I to enter Insert mode, followed by the text to insert. As you type, the text appears on the first line only. After you press <Esc> to end the insert, the text will magically be inserted in the rest of the lines contained in the visual selection. Example: include one ~ include two ~ include three ~ include four ~ Move the cursor to the "o" of "one" and press CTRL-V. Move it down with "3j" to "four". You now have a block selection that spans four lines. Now type: > Imain.<Esc> The result: include main.one ~ include main.two ~ include main.three ~ include main.four ~ If the block spans short lines that do not extend into the block, the text is not inserted in that line. For example, make a Visual block selection that includes the word "long" in the first and last line of this text, and thus has no text selected in the second line: This is a long line ~ short ~ Any other long line ~ ^^^^ selected block Now use the command "Ivery <Esc>". The result is: This is a very long line ~ short ~ Any other very long line ~ In the short line no text was inserted. If the string you insert contains a newline, the "I" acts just like a Normal insert command and affects only the first line of the block. The "A" command works the same way, except that it appends after the right side of the block. There is one special case for "A": Select a Visual block and then use "$" to make the block extend to the end of each line. Using "A" now will append the text to the end of each line. Using the same example from above, and then typing "$A XXX<Esc>, you get this result: This is a long line XXX ~ short XXX ~ Any other long line XXX ~ This really requires using the "$" command. Vim remembers that it was used. Making the same selection by moving the cursor to the end of the longest line with other movement commands will not have the same result. CHANGING TEXT The Visual block "c" command deletes the block and then throws you into Insert mode to enable you to type in a string. The string will be inserted in each line in the block. Starting with the same selection of the "long" words as above, then typing "c_LONG_<Esc>", you get this: This is a _LONG_ line ~ short ~ Any other _LONG_ line ~ Just like with "I" the short line is not changed. Also, you can't enter a newline in the new text. The "C" command deletes text from the left edge of the block to the end of line. It then puts you in Insert mode so that you can type in a string, which is added to the end of each line. Starting with the same text again, and typing "Cnew text<Esc>" you get: This is a new text ~ short ~ Any other new text ~ Notice that, even though only the "long" word was selected, the text after it is deleted as well. Thus only the location of the left edge of the visual block really matters. Again, short lines that do not reach into the block are excluded. Other commands that change the characters in the block: ~ swap case (a -> A and A -> a) U make uppercase (a -> A and A -> A) u make lowercase (a -> a and A -> a) FILLING WITH A CHARACTER To fill the whole block with one character, use the "r" command. Again, starting with the same example text from above, and then typing "rx": This is a xxxx line ~ short ~ Any other xxxx line ~ Note: If you want to include characters beyond the end of the line in the block, check out the 'virtualedit' feature in chapter 25. SHIFTING The command ">" shifts the selected text to the right one shift amount, inserting whitespace. The starting point for this shift is the left edge of the visual block. With the same example again, ">" gives this result: This is a long line ~ short ~ Any other long line ~ The shift amount is specified with the 'shiftwidth' option. To change it to use 4 spaces: > :set shiftwidth=4 The "<" command removes one shift amount of whitespace at the left edge of the block. This command is limited by the amount of text that is there; so if there is less than a shift amount of whitespace available, it removes what it can. JOINING LINES The "J" command joins all selected lines together into one line. Thus it removes the line breaks. Actually, the line break, leading white space and trailing white space is replaced by one space. Two spaces are used after a line ending (that can be changed with the 'joinspaces' option). Let's use the example that we got so familiar with now. The result of using the "J" command: This is a long line short Any other long line ~ The "J" command doesn't require a blockwise selection. It works with "v" and "V" selection in exactly the same way. If you don't want the white space to be changed, use the "gJ" command.
*10.6* Reading and writing part of a file When you are writing an e-mail message, you may want to include another file. This can be done with the ":read {filename}" command. The text of the file is put below the cursor line. Starting with this text: Hi John, ~ Here is the diff that fixes the bug: ~ Bye, Pierre. ~ Move the cursor to the second line and type: > :read patch The file named "patch" will be inserted, with this result: Hi John, ~ Here is the diff that fixes the bug: ~ 2c2 ~ < for (i = 0; i <= length; ++i) ~ --- ~ > for (i = 0; i < length; ++i) ~ Bye, Pierre. ~ The ":read" command accepts a range. The file will be put below the last line number of this range. Thus ":$r patch" appends the file "patch" at the end of the file. What if you want to read the file above the first line? This can be done with the line number zero. This line doesn't really exist, you will get an error message when using it with most commands. But this command is allowed: > :0read patch The file "patch" will be put above the first line of the file. WRITING A RANGE OF LINES To write a range of lines to a file, the ":write" command can be used. Without a range it writes the whole file. With a range only the specified lines are written: > :.,$write tempo This writes the lines from the cursor until the end of the file into the file "tempo". If this file already exists you will get an error message. Vim protects you from accidentally overwriting an existing file. If you know what you are doing and want to overwrite the file, append !: > :.,$write! tempo CAREFUL: The ! must follow the ":write" command immediately, without white space. Otherwise it becomes a filter command, which is explained later in this chapter. APPENDING TO A FILE In the first section of this chapter was explained how to collect a number of lines into a register. The same can be done to collect lines in a file. Write the first line with this command: > :.write collection Now move the cursor to the second line you want to collect, and type this: > :.write >>collection The ">>" tells Vim the "collection" file is not to be written as a new file, but the line must be appended at the end. You can repeat this as many times as you like.
*10.7* Formatting text When you are typing plain text, it's nice if the length of each line is automatically trimmed to fit in the window. To make this happen while inserting text, set the 'textwidth' option: > :set textwidth=72 You might remember that in the example vimrc file this command was used for every text file. Thus if you are using that vimrc file, you were already using it. To check the current value of 'textwidth': > :set textwidth Now lines will be broken to take only up to 72 characters. But when you insert text halfway a line, or when you delete a few words, the lines will get too long or too short. Vim doesn't automatically reformat the text. To tell Vim to format the current paragraph: > gqap This starts with the "gq" command, which is an operator. Following is "ap", the text object that stands for "a paragraph". A paragraph is separated from the next paragraph by an empty line. Note: A blank line, which contains white space, does NOT separate paragraphs. This is hard to notice! Instead of "ap" you could use any motion or text object. If your paragraphs are properly separated, you can use this command to format the whole file: > gggqG "gg" takes you to the first line, "gq" is the format operator and "G" the motion that jumps to the last line. In case your paragraphs aren't clearly defined, you can format just the lines you manually select. Move the cursor to the first line you want to format. Start with the command "gqj". This formats the current line and the one below it. If the first line was short, words from the next line will be appended. If it was too long, words will be moved to the next line. The cursor moves to the second line. Now you can use "." to repeat the command. Keep doing this until you are at the end of the text you want to format.
*10.8* Changing case You have text with section headers in lowercase. You want to make the word "section" all uppercase. Do this with the "gU" operator. Start with the cursor in the first column: > gUw < section header ----> SECTION header The "gu" operator does exactly the opposite: > guw < SECTION header ----> section header You can also use "g~" to swap case. All these are operators, thus they work with any motion command, with text objects and in Visual mode. To make an operator work on lines you double it. The delete operator is "d", thus to delete a line you use "dd". Similarly, "gugu" makes a whole line lowercase. This can be shortened to "guu". "gUgU" is shortened to "gUU" and "g~g~" to "g~~". Example: > g~~ < Some GIRLS have Fun ----> sOME girls HAVE fUN ~
*10.9* Using an external program Vim has a very powerful set of commands, it can do anything. But there may still be something that an external command can do better or faster. The command "!{motion}{program}" takes a block of text and filters it through an external program. In other words, it runs the system command represented by {program}, giving it the block of text represented by {motion} as input. The output of this command then replaces the selected block. Because this summarizes badly if you are unfamiliar with UNIX filters, take a look at an example. The sort command sorts a file. If you execute the following command, the unsorted file input.txt will be sorted and written to output.txt. (This works on both UNIX and Microsoft Windows.) > sort <input.txt >output.txt Now do the same thing in Vim. You want to sort lines 1 through 5 of a file. You start by putting the cursor on line 1. Next you execute the following command: > !5G The "!" tells Vim that you are performing a filter operation. The Vim editor expects a motion command to follow, indicating which part of the file to filter. The "5G" command tells Vim to go to line 5, so it now knows that it is to filter lines 1 (the current line) through 5. In anticipation of the filtering, the cursor drops to the bottom of the screen and a ! prompt displays. You can now type in the name of the filter program, in this case "sort". Therefore, your full command is as follows: > !5Gsort<Enter> The result is that the sort program is run on the first 5 lines. The output of the program replaces these lines. line 55 line 11 line 33 line 22 line 11 --> line 33 line 22 line 44 line 44 line 55 last line last line The "!!" command filters the current line through a filter. In Unix the "date" command prints the current time and date. "!!date<Enter>" replaces the current line with the output of "date". This is useful to add a timestamp to a file. WHEN IT DOESN'T WORK Starting a shell, sending it text and capturing the output requires that Vim knows how the shell works exactly. When you have problems with filtering, check the values of these options: 'shell' specifies the program that Vim uses to execute external programs. 'shellcmdflag' argument to pass a command to the shell 'shellquote' quote to be used around the command 'shellxquote' quote to be used around the command and redirection 'shelltype' kind of shell (only for the Amiga) 'shellslash' use forward slashes in the command (only for MS-Windows and alikes) 'shellredir' string used to write the command output into a file On Unix this is hardly ever a problem, because there are two kinds of shells: "sh" like and "csh" like. Vim checks the 'shell' option and sets related options automatically, depending on whether it sees "csh" somewhere in 'shell'. On MS-Windows, however, there are many different shells and you might have to tune the options to make filtering work. Check the help for the options for more information. READING COMMAND OUTPUT To read the contents of the current directory into the file, use this: on Unix: > :read !ls on MS-Windows: > :read !dir The output of the "ls" or "dir" command is captured and inserted in the text, below the cursor. This is similar to reading a file, except that the "!" is used to tell Vim that a command follows. The command may have arguments. And a range can be used to tell where Vim should put the lines: > :0read !date -u This inserts the current time and date in UTC format at the top of the file. (Well, if you have a date command that accepts the "-u" argument.) Note the difference with using "!!date": that replaced a line, while ":read !date" will insert a line. WRITING TEXT TO A COMMAND The Unix command "wc" counts words. To count the words in the current file: > :write !wc This is the same write command as before, but instead of a file name the "!" character is used and the name of an external command. The written text will be passed to the specified command as its standard input. The output could look like this: 4 47 249 ~ The "wc" command isn't verbose. This means you have 4 lines, 47 words and 249 characters. Watch out for this mistake: > :write! wc This will write the file "wc" in the current directory, with force. White space is important here! REDRAWING THE SCREEN If the external command produced an error message, the display may have been messed up. Vim is very efficient and only redraws those parts of the screen that it knows need redrawing. But it can't know about what another program has written. To tell Vim to redraw the screen: > CTRL-L
*usr_11.txt* For Vim version 6.1. Last change: 2001 Sep 03 Recovering from a crash Did your computer crash? And you just spent hours editing? Don't panic! Vim keeps enough information on harddisk to be able to restore most of your work. This chapter shows you how to get your work back and explains how the swap file is used. |11.1| Basic recovery |11.2| Where is the swap file? |11.3| Crashed or not? |11.4| Further reading
*11.1* Basic recovery In most cases recovering a file is quite simple, assuming you know which file you were editing (and the harddisk is still working). Start Vim on the file, with the "-r" argument added: > vim -r help.txt Vim will read the swap file (used to store text you were editing) and may read bits and pieces of the original file. If all is well, you will see these messages (with different file names, of course): Using swap file ".help.txt.swp" ~ Original file "~/vim/runtime/doc/help.txt" ~ Recovery completed. You should check if everything is OK. ~ (You might want to write out this file under another name ~ and run diff with the original file to check for changes) ~ Delete the .swp file afterwards. ~ To be on the safe side, write this file under another name: > :write help.txt.recovered Compare the file with the original file to check if you ended up with what you expected. Vimdiff is very useful for this |08.7|. Watch out for the original file to contain a more recent version (you saved the file just before the computer crashed). And check that no lines are missing (something went wrong that Vim could not recover). If Vim produces warning messages when recovering, read them carefully. This is rare though. It's normal that the last few changes can not be recovered. Vim flushes the changes to disk when you don't type for about four seconds, or after typing about two hundred characters. This is set with the 'updatetime' and 'updatecount' options. Thus when Vim didn't get a chance to save itself when the system went down, the changes after the last flush will be lost. If you were editing without a file name, give an empty string as argument: > vim -r "" You must be in the right directory, otherwise Vim can't find the swap file.
*11.2* Where is the swap file? Vim can store the swap file in several places. Normally it is in the same directory as the original file. To find it, change to the directory of the file, and use: > vim -r Vim will list the swap files that it can find. It will also look in other directories where the swap file for files in the current directory may be located. It will not find swap files in any other directories though, it doesn't search the directory tree. The output could look like this: Swap files found: ~ In current directory: ~ 1. .main.c.swp ~ owned by: mool dated: Tue May 29 21:00:25 2001 ~ file name: ~mool/vim/vim6/src/main.c ~ modified: YES ~ user name: mool host name: masaka.moolenaar.net ~ process ID: 12525 ~ In directory ~/tmp: ~ -- none -- ~ In directory /var/tmp: ~ -- none -- ~ In directory /tmp: ~ -- none -- ~ If there are several swap files that look like they may be the one you want to use, a list is given of these swap files and you are requested to enter the number of the one you want to use. Carefully look at the dates to decide which one you want to use. In case you don't know which one to use, just try them one by one and check the resulting files if they are what you expected. USING A SPECIFIC SWAP FILE If you know which swap file needs to be used, you can recover by giving the swap file name. Vim will then finds out the name of the original file from the swap file. Example: > Vim -r .help.txt.swo This is also handy when the swap file is in another directory than expected. If this still does not work, see what file names Vim reports and rename the files accordingly. Check the 'directory' option to see where Vim may have put the swap file. Note: Vim tries to find the swap file by searching the directories in the 'dir' option, looking for files that match "filename.sw?". If wildcard expansion doesn't work (e.g., when the 'shell' option is invalid), Vim does a desperate try to find the file "filename.swp". If that fails too, you will have to give the name of the swapfile itself to be able to recover the file.
*11.3* Crashed or not?  Suppose you innocently start editing a file, expecting the contents of the file to show up. Instead, Vim produces a very long message: E325: ATTENTION ~ Found a swap file by the name ".main.c.swp" ~ owned by: mool dated: Tue May 29 21:09:28 2001 ~ file name: ~mool/vim/vim6/src/main.c ~ modified: no ~ user name: mool host name: masaka.moolenaar.net ~ process ID: 12559 (still running) ~ While opening file "main.c" ~ dated: Tue May 29 19:46:12 2001 ~ ~ (1) Another program may be editing the same file. ~ If this is the case, be careful not to end up with two ~ different instances of the same file when making changes. ~ Quit, or continue with caution. ~ ~ (2) An edit session for this file crashed. ~ If this is the case, use ":recover" or "vim -r main.c" ~ to recover the changes (see ":help recovery"). ~ If you did this already, delete the swap file ".main.c.swp" ~ to avoid this message. ~ You get this message, because, when starting to edit a file, Vim checks if a swap file already exists for that file. If there is one, there must be something wrong. It may be one of these two situations. 1. Another edit session is active on this file. Look in the message for the line with "process ID". It might look like this: process ID: 12559 (still running) ~ The text "(still running)" indicates that the process editing this file runs on the same computer. When working on a non-Unix system you will not get this extra hint. When editing a file over a network, you may not see the hint, because the process might be running on another computer. In those two cases you must find out what the situation is yourself. If there is another Vim editing the same file, continuing to edit will result in two versions of the same file. The one that is written last will overwrite the other one, resulting in loss of changes. You better quit this Vim. 2. The swap file might be the result from a previous crash of Vim or the computer. Check the dates mentioned in the message. If the date of the swap file is newer than the file you were editing, and this line appears: modified: YES ~ Then you very likely have a crashed edit session that is worth recovering. If the date of the file is newer than the date of the swap file, it was probably changed after the crash. Perhaps you recovered it earlier, but didn't delete the swap file? Vim will warn you for this with this extra line: NEWER than swap file! ~ WHAT TO DO? If dialogs are supported you will be asked to select one of five choices: Swap file ".main.c.swp" already exists! ~ [O]pen Read-Only, (E)dit anyway, (R)ecover, (Q)uit, (D)elete it: ~ O Open the file readonly. Use this when you just want to view the file and don't need to recover it. You might want to use this when you know someone else is editing the file, but you just want to look in it and not make changes. E Edit the file anyway. Use this with caution! If the file is being edited in another Vim, you might end up with two versions of the file. Vim will try to warn you when this happens, but better be safe then sorry. R Recover the file from the swap file. Use this if you know that the swap file contains changes that you want to recover. Q Quit. This avoids starting to edit the file. Use this if there is another Vim editing the same file. When you just started Vim, this will exit Vim. When starting Vim with files in several windows, Vim quits only if there is a swap file for the first one. When using an edit command, the file will not be loaded and you are taken back to the previously edited file. D Delete the swap file. Use this when you are sure you no longer need it. For example, when it doesn't contain changes, or when the file itself is newer than the swap file. On Unix this choice is only offered when the process that created the swap file does not appear to be running. If you do not get the dialog (you are running a version of Vim that does not support it), you will have to do it manually. To recover the file, use this command: > :recover Vim cannot always detect that a swap file already exists for a file. This is the case when the other edit session puts the swap files in another directory or when the path name for the file is different when editing it on different machines. Therefore, don't rely on Vim always warning you. If you really don't want to see this message, you can add the 'A' flag to the 'shortmess' option. But it's very unusual that you need this.
*11.4* Further reading |swap-file| An explanation about where the swap file will be created and what its name is. |:preserve| Manually flushing the swap file to disk. |:swapname| See the name of the swap file for the current file. 'updatecount' Number of key strokes after which the swap file is flushed to disk. 'updatetime' Timeout after which the swap file is flushed to disk. 'swapsync' Whether the disk is synced when the swap file is flushed. 'directory' List of directory names where to store the swap file. 'maxmem' Limit for memory usage before writing text to the swap file. 'maxmemtot' Same, but for all files in total.
*usr_12.txt* For Vim version 6.1. Last change: 2001 Oct 23 Clever tricks By combining several commands you can make Vim do nearly everything. In this chapter a number of useful combinations will be presented. This uses the commands introduced in the previous chapters and a few more. |12.1| Replace a word |12.2| Change "Last, First" to "First Last" |12.3| Sort a list |12.4| Reverse line order |12.5| Count words |12.6| Find a man page |12.7| Trim blanks |12.8| Find where a word is used
*12.1* Replace a word The substitute command can be used to replace all occurrences of a word with another word: > :%s/four/4/g The "%" range means to replace in all lines. The "g" flag at the end causes all words in a line to be replaced. This will not do the right thing if your file also contains "thirtyfour". It would be replaced with "thirty4". To avoid this, use the "\<" item to match the start of a word: > :%s/\<four/4/g Obviously, this still goes wrong on "fourty". Use "\>" to match the end of a word: > :%s/\<four\>/4/g If you are programming, you might want to replace "four" in comments, but not in the code. Since this is difficult to specify, add the "c" flag to have the substitute command prompt you for each replacement: > :%s/\<four\>/4/gc REPLACING IN SEVERAL FILES Suppose you want to replace a word in more than one file. You could edit each file and type the command manually. It's a lot faster to use record and playback. Let's assume you have a directory with C++ files, all ending in ".cpp". There is a function called "GetResp" that you want to rename to "GetAnswer". vim *.cpp Start Vim, defining the argument list to contain all the C++ files. You are now in the first file. qq Start recording into the q register :%s/\<GetResp\>/GetAnswer/g Do the replacements in the first file. :wnext Write this file and move to the next one. q Stop recording. @q Execute the q register. This will replay the substitution and ":wnext". You can verify that this doesn't produce an error message. 999@q Execute the q register on the remaining files. At the last file you will get an error message, because ":wnext" cannot move to the next file. This stops the execution, and everything is done. Note: When playing back a recorded sequence, an error stops the execution. Therefore, make sure you don't get an error message when recording. There is one catch: If one of the .cpp files does not contain the word "GetResp", you will get an error and replacing will stop. To avoid this, add the "e" flag to the substitute command: > :%s/\<GetResp\>/GetAnswer/ge The "e" flag tells ":substitute" that not finding a match is not an error.
*12.2* Change "Last, First" to "First Last" You have a list of names in this form: Doe, John ~ Smith, Peter ~ You want to change that to: John Doe ~ Peter Smith ~ This can be done with just one command: > :%s/\([^,]*\), \(.*\)/\2 \1/ Let's break this down in parts. Obviously it starts with a substitute command. The "%" is the line range, which stands for the whole file. Thus the substitution is done in every line in the file. The arguments for the substitute command are "/from/to/". The slashes separate the "from" pattern and the "to" string. This is what the "from" pattern contains: \([^,]*\), \(.*\) ~ The first part between \( \) matches "Last" \( \) match anything but a comma [^,] any number of times * matches ", " literally , The second part between \( \) matches "First" \( \) any character . any number of times * In the "to" part we have "\2" and "\1". These are called backreferences. They refer to the text matched by the \( \) parts in the pattern. "\2" refers to the text matched by the second "\( \)", which is the "First" name. "\1" refers to the first \( \), which is the "Last" name. You can use up to nine backreferences in the "to" part of a substitute command. "\0" stands for the whole matched pattern. There are a few more special items in a substitute command, see |sub-replace-special|.
*12.3* Sort a list In a Makefile you often have a list of files. For example: OBJS = \ ~ version.o \ ~ pch.o \ ~ getopt.o \ ~ util.o \ ~ getopt1.o \ ~ inp.o \ ~ patch.o \ ~ backup.o ~ To sort this list, filter the text through the external sort command: > /^OBJS j :.,/^$/-1!sort This goes to the first line, where "OBJS" is the first thing in the line. Then it goes one line down and filters the lines until the next empty line. You could also select the lines in Visual mode and then use "!sort". That's easier to type, but more work when there are many lines. The result is this: OBJS = \ ~ backup.o ~ getopt.o \ ~ getopt1.o \ ~ inp.o \ ~ patch.o \ ~ pch.o \ ~ util.o \ ~ version.o \ ~ Notice that a backslash at the end of each line is used to indicate the line continues. After sorting, this is wrong! The "backup.o" line that was at the end didn't have a backslash. Now that it sorts to another place, it must have a backslash. The simplest solution is to add the backslash with "A \<Esc>". You can keep the backslash in the last line, if you make sure an empty line comes after it. That way you don't have this problem again.
*12.4* Reverse line order The |:global| command can be combined with the |:move| command to move all the lines before the first line, resulting in a reversed file. The command is: > :global/^/m 0 Abbreviated: > :g/^/m 0 The "^" regular expression matches the beginning of the line (even if the line is blank). The |:move| command moves the matching line to after the mythical zeroeth line, so the current matching line becomes the first line of the file. As the |:global| command is not confused by the changing line numbering, |:global| proceeds to match all remaining lines of the file and puts each as the first. This also works on a range of lines. First move to above the first line and mark it with "mt". Then move the cursor to the last line in the range and type: > :'t+1,.g/^/m 't
*12.5* Count words Sometimes you have to write a text with a maximum number of words. Vim can count the words for you. When the whole file is what you want to count the words in, use this command: > g CTRL-G Do not type a space after the g, this is just used here to make the command easy to read. The output looks like this: Col 1 of 0; Line 141 of 157; Word 748 of 774; Byte 4489 of 4976 ~ You can see on which word you are (748), and the total number of words in the file (774). When the text is only part of a file, you could move to the start of the text, type "g CTRL-G", move to the end of the text, type "g CTRL-G" again, and then use your brain to compute the difference in the word position. That's a good exercise, but there is an easier way. With Visual mode, select the text you want to count words in. Then type g CTRL-G. The result: Selected 5 of 293 Lines; 70 of 1884 Words; 359 of 10928 Bytes ~ For other ways to count words, lines and other items, see |count-items|.
*12.6* Find a man page While editing a shell script or C program, you are using a command or function that you want to find the man page for (this is on Unix). Let's first use a simple way: Move the cursor to the word you want to find help on and press > K Vim will run the external "man" program on the word. If the man page is found, it is displayed. This uses the normal pager to scroll through the text (mostly the "more" program). When you get to the end pressing <Enter> will get you back into Vim. A disadvantage is that you can't see the man page and the text you are working on at the same time. There is a trick to make the man page appear in a Vim window. First, load the man filetype plugin: > :source $VIMRUNTIME/ftplugin/man.vim Put this command in your vimrc file if you intend to do this often. Now you can use the ":Man" command to open a window on a man page: > :Man csh You can scroll around and the text is highlighted. This allows you to find the help you were looking for. Use CTRL-W w to jump to the window with the text you were working on. To find a man page in a specific section, put the section number first. For example, to look in section 3 for "echo": > :Man 3 echo To jump to another man page, which is in the text with the typical form "word(1)", press CTRL-] on it. Further ":Man" commands will use the same window. To display a man page for the word under the cursor, use this: > \K (If you redefined the <Leader>, use it instead of the backslash). For example, you want to know the return value of "strstr()" while editing this line: if (strstr(input, "aap") == ) ~ Move the cursor to somewhere on "strstr" and type "\K". A window will open to display the man page for strstr().
*12.7* Trim blanks Some people find spaces and tabs at the end of a line useless, wasteful, and ugly. To remove whitespace at the end of every line, execute the following command: > :%s/\s\+$// The line range "%" is used, thus this works on the whole file. The pattern that the ":substitute" command matches with is "\s\+$". This finds white space characters (\s), 1 or more of them (\+), before the end-of-line ($).  The "to" part of the substitute command is empty: "//". Thus it replaces with nothing, effectively deleting the matched white space. Another wasteful use of spaces is placing them before a Tab. Often these can be deleted without changing the amount of white space. But not always! Therefore, you can best do this manually. Use this search command: > / You cannot see it, but there is a space before a tab in this command. Thus it's "/<Space><Tab>". Now use "x" to delete the space and check that the amount of white space doesn't change. You might have to insert a Tab if it does change. Type "n" to find the next match. Repeat this until no more matches can be found.
*12.8* Find where a word is used If you are a UNIX user, you can use a combination of Vim and the grep command to edit all the files that contain a given word. This is extremely useful if you are working on a program and want to view or edit all the files that contain a specific variable. For example, suppose you want to edit all the C program files that contain the word "frame_counter". To do this you use the command: > vim `grep -l frame_counter *.c` Let's look at this command in detail. The grep command searches through a set of files for a given word. Because the -l argument is specified, the command will only list the files containing the word and not print the matching lines. The word it is searching for is "frame_counter". Actually, this can be any regular expression. (Note: What grep uses for regular expressions is not exactly the same as what Vim uses.) The entire command is enclosed in backticks (`). This tells the UNIX shell to run this command and pretend that the results were typed on the command line. So what happens is that the grep command is run and produces a list of files, these files are put on the Vim command line. This results in Vim editing the file list that is the output of grep. You can then use commands like ":next" and ":first" to browse through the files. FINDING EACH LINE The above command only finds the files in which the word is found. You still have to find the word within the files. Vim has a built-in command that you can use to search a set of files for a given string. If you want to find all occurrences of "error_string" in all C program files, for example, enter the following command: > :grep error_string *.c This causes Vim to search for the string "error_string" in all the specified files (*.c). The editor will now open the first file where a match is found and position the cursor on the first matching line. To go to the next matching line (no matter in what it is file), use the ":cnext" command. To go to the previous match, use the ":cprev" command. Use ":clist" to see all the matches and where they are. The ":grep" command uses the external commands grep (on Unix) or findstr (on Windows). You can change this by setting the option 'grepprg'.
*usr_20.txt* For Vim version 6.1. Last change: 2002 Mar 04 Typing command-line commands quickly Vim has a few generic features that makes it easier to enter commands. Colon commands can be abbreviated, edited and repeated. Completion is available for nearly everyting. |20.1| Command line editing |20.2| Command line abbreviations |20.3| Command line completion |20.4| Command line history |20.5| Command line window
*20.1* Command line editing When you use a colon (:) command or search for a string with / or ?, Vim puts the cursor on the bottom of the screen. There you type the command or search pattern. This is called the Command line. Also when it's used for entering a search command. The most obvious way to edit the command you type is by pressing the <BS> key. This erases the character before the cursor. To erase another character, typed earlier, first move the cursor with the cursor keys. For example, you have typed this: > :s/col/pig/ Before you hit Enter, you notice that "col" should be "cow". To correct this, you type <Left> five times. The cursor is now just after "col". Type "<BS> and "w" to correct: > :s/cow/pig/ Now you can press <Enter> directly. You don't have to move the cursor to the end of the line before executing the command. The most often used keys to move around in the command line: <Left> one character left <Right> one character right <S-Left> or <C-Left> one word left <S-Right> or <C-Right> one word right CTRL-B or <Home> to begin of command line CTRL-E or <End> to end of command line Note: <S-Left> (cursor left key with Shift key pressed) and <C-Left> (cursor left key with Control pressed) will not work on all keyboards. Same for the other Shift and Control combinations. You can also use the mouse to move the cursor. DELETING As mentioned, <BS> deletes the character before the cursor. To delete a whole word use CTRL-W. /the fine pig ~ CTRL-W /the fine ~ CTRL-U removes all text, thus allows you to start all over again. OVERSTRIKE The <Insert> key toggles between inserting characters and replacing the existing ones. Start with this text: /the fine pig ~ Move the cursor to the start of "fine" with <S-Left> twice (or <Left> eight times, if <S-Left> doesn't work). Now press <Insert> to switch to overstrike and type "great": /the greatpig ~ Oops, we lost the space. Now, don't use <BS>, because it would delete the "t" (this is different from Replace mode).  To get rid of what you already typed, without executing it, press CTRL-C or <Esc>. Note: <Esc> is the universal "get out" key. Unfortunately, in the good old Vi pressing <Esc> in a command line executed the command! Since that might be considered to be a bug, Vim uses <Esc> to cancel the command. But with the 'cpoptions' option it can be made Vi compatible. And when using a mapping (which might be written for Vi) <Esc> also works Vi compatible. Therefore, using CTRL-C is a method that always works. If you are at the start of the command line, pressing <BS> will cancel the command. It's like deleting the ":" or "/" that the line starts with.
*20.2* Command line abbreviations Some of the ":" commands are really long. We already mentioned that ":substitute" can be abbreviated to ":s". This is a generic mechanism, all ":" commands can be abbreviated. How short can a command get? There are 26 letters, and many more commands. For example, ":set" also starts with ":s", but ":s" doesn't start a ":set" command. Instead ":set" can be abbreviated to ":se". When the shorter form of a command could be used for two commands, it stands for only one of them. There is no logic behind which one, you have to learn them. In the help files the shortest form that works is mentioned. For example: :s[ubstitute] This means that the shortest form of ":substitute" is ":s". The following characters are optional. Thus ":su" and ":sub" also work. In the user manual we will either use the full name of command, or a short version that is still readable. For example, ":function" can be abbreviated to ":fu". But since most people don't understand what that stands for, we will use ":fun". (Vim doesn't have a ":funny" command, otherwise ":fun" would be confusing too.) It is recommended that in Vim scripts you write the full command name. That makes it easier to read back when you make later changes. Except for some often used commands like ":w" (":write") and ":r" (":read"). A particularly confusing one is ":end", which could stand for ":endif", ":endwhile" or ":endfunction". Therefore, always use the full name. SHORT OPTION NAMES In the user manual the long version of the option names is used. Many options also have a short name. Unlike ":" commands, there is only one short name that works. For example, the short name of 'autoindent' is 'ai'. Thus these two commands do the same thing: > :set autoindent :set ai You can find the full list of long and short names here: |option-list|.
*20.3* Command line completion This is one of those Vim features that, by itself, is a reason to switch from Vi to Vim. Once you have used this, you can't do without. Suppose you have a directory that contains these files: info.txt intro.txt bodyofthepaper.txt To edit the last one, you use the command: > :edit bodyofthepaper.txt It's easy to type this wrong. A much quicker way is: > :edit b<Tab> Which will result in the same command. What happened? The <Tab> key does completion of the word before the cursor. In this case "b". Vim looks in the directory and finds only one file that starts with a "b". That must be the one you are looking for, thus Vim completes the file name for you. Now type: > :edit i<Tab> Vim will beep, and give you: > :edit info.txt The beep means that Vim has found more than one match. It then uses the first match it found (alphabetically). If you press <Tab> again, you get: > :edit intro.txt Thus, if the first <Tab> doesn't give you the file you were looking for, press it again. If there are more matches, you will see them all, one at a time. If you press <Tab> on the last matching entry, you will go back to what you first typed: > :edit i Then it starts all over again. Thus Vim cycles through the list of matches. Use CTRL-P to go through the list in the other direction: <------------------- <Tab> -------------------------+ | <Tab> --> <Tab> --> :edit i :edit info.txt :edit intro.txt <-- CTRL-P <-- CTRL-P | +---------------------- CTRL-P ------------------------> CONTEXT When you type ":set i" instead of ":edit i" and press <Tab> you get: > :set icon Hey, why didn't you get ":set info.txt"? That's because Vim has context sensitive completion. The kind of words Vim will look for depends on the command before it. Vim knows that you cannot use a file name just after a ":set" command, but you can use an option name. Again, if you repeat typing the <Tab>, Vim will cycle through all matches. There are quite a few, it's better to type more characters first: > :set isk<Tab> Gives: > :set iskeyword Now type "=" and press <Tab>: > :set iskeyword=@,48-57,_,192-255 What happens here is that Vim inserts the old value of the option. Now you can edit it. What is completed with <Tab> is what Vim expects in that place. Just try it out to see how it works. In some situations you will not get what you want. That's either because Vim doesn't know what you want, or because completion was not implemented for that situation. In that case you will get a <Tab> inserted (displayed as ^I). LIST MATCHES When there are many matches, you would like to see an overview. Do this by pressing CTRL-D. For example, pressing CTRL-D after: > :set is results in: > :set is incsearch isfname isident iskeyword isprint :set is Vim lists the matches and then comes back with the text you typed. You can now check the list for the item you wanted. If it isn't there, you can use <BS> to correct the word. If there are many matches, type a few more characters before pressing <Tab> to complete the rest. If you have watched carefully, you will have noticed that "incsearch" doesnt' start with "is". In this case "is" stands for the short name of "incsearch". (Many options have a short and a long name.) Vim is clever enough to know that you might have wanted to expand the short name of the option into the long name. THERE IS MORE The CTRL-L command completes the word to the longest unambiguous string. If you type ":edit i" and there are files "info.txt" and "info_backup.txt" you will get ":edit info". The 'wildmode' option can be used to change the way completion works. The 'wildmenu' option can be used to get a menu-like list of matches. Use the 'suffixes' option to specify files that are less important and appear at the end of the list of files. The 'wildignore' option specifies files that are not listed at all. More about all of this here: |cmdline-completion|
*20.4* Command line history In chapter 3 we briefly mentioned the history. The basics are that you can use the <Up> key to recall an older command line. <Down> then takes you back to newer commands. There are actually four histories. The ones we will mention here are for ":" commands and for "/" and "?" search commands. The "/" and "?" commands share the same history, because they are both search commands. The two other histories are for expressions and input lines for the input() function. |cmdline-history| Suppose you have done a ":set" command, typed ten more colon commands and then want to repeat that ":set" command again. You could press ":" and then ten times <Up>. There is a quicker way: > :se<Up> Vim will now go back to the previous command that started with "se". You have a good chance that this is the ":set" command you were looking for. At least you should not have to press <Up> very often (unless ":set" commands is all you have done). The <Up> key will use the text typed so far and compare it with the lines in the history. Only matching lines will be used. If you do not find the line you were looking for, use <Down> to go back to what you typed and correct that. Or use CTRL-U to start all over again. To see all the lines in the history: > :history That's the history of ":" commands. The search history is displayed with this command: > :history / In case you don't want to use the cursor keys, CTRL-P will do the same as <Up> and CTRL-N as <Down>. CTRL-P stands for previous, CTRL-N for next.
*20.5* Command line window Typing the text in the command line works different from typing text in Insert mode. It doesn't allow many commands to change the text. For most commands that's OK, but sometimes you have to type a complicated command. That's where the command line window is useful. Open the command line window with this command: > q: Vim now opens a (small) window at the bottom. It contains the command line history, and an empty line at the end: +-------------------------------------+ |other window | |~ | |file.txt=============================| |:e c | |:e config.h.in | |:set path=.,/usr/include,, | |:set iskeyword=@,48-57,_,192-255 | |:set is | |:q | |: | |command-line=========================| | | +-------------------------------------+ You are now in Normal mode. You can use the "hjkl" keys to move around. For example, move up with "5k" to the ":e config.h.in" line. Type "$h" to go to the "i" of "in" and type "cwout". Now you have changed the line to: :e config.h.out ~ Now press <Enter> and this command will be executed. The command line window will close. The <Enter> command will execute the line under the cursor. It doesn't matter whether Vim is in Insert mode or in Normal mode. Changes in the command line window are lost. They do not result in the history to be changed. Except that the command you execute will be added to the end of the history, like with all executed commands. The command line window is very useful when you want to have overview of the history, lookup a similar command, change it a bit and execute it. A search command can be used to find something. In the previous example the "?config" search command could have been used to find the previous command that contains "config". It's a bit strange, because you are using a command line to search in the command line window. While typing that search command you can't open another command line window, there can only be one.
*usr_21.txt* For Vim version 6.1. Last change: 2001 Sep 03 Go away and come back This chapter goes into mixing the use of other programs with Vim. Either by executing program from inside Vim or by leaving Vim and coming back later. Furthermore, this is about the ways to remember the state of Vim and restore it later. |21.1| Suspend and resume |21.2| Executing shell commands |21.3| Remembering information; viminfo |21.4| Sessions |21.5| Views |21.6| Modelines
*21.1* Suspend and resume Like most Unix programs Vim can be suspended by pressing CTRL-Z. This stops Vim and takes you back to the shell it was started in. You can then do any other commands until you are bored with them. Then bring back Vim with the "fg" command. > CTRL-Z {any sequence of shell commands} fg You are right back where you left Vim, nothing has changed. In case pressing CTRL-Z doesn't work, you can also use ":suspend". Don't forget to bring Vim back to the foreground, you would lose any changes that you made! Only Unix has support for this. On other systems Vim will start a shell for you. This also has the functionality of being able to execute shell commands. But it's a new shell, not the one that you started Vim from. When you are running the GUI you can't go back to the shell where Vim was started. CTRL-Z will minimize the Vim window instead.
*21.2* Executing shell commands To execute a single shell command from Vim use ":!{command}". For example, to see a directory listing: > :!ls :!dir The first one is for Unix, the second one for MS-Windows. Vim will execute the program. When it ends you will get a prompt to hit <Enter>. This allows you to have a look at the output from the command before returning to the text you were editing. The "!" is also used in other places where a program is run. Let's take a look at an overview: :!{program} execute {program} :r !{program} execute {program} and read its output :w !{program} execute {program} and send text to its input :[range]!{program} filter text through {program} Notice that the precense of a range before "!{program}" makes a big difference. Without it executes the program normally, with the range a number of text lines is filtered through the program. Executing a whole row of programs this way is possible. But a shell is much better at it. You can start a new shell this way: > :shell This is similar to using CTRL-Z to suspend Vim. The difference is that a new shell is started. When using the GUI the shell will be using the Vim window for its input and output. Since Vim is not a terminal emulator, this will not work perfectly. If you have trouble, try toggling the 'guipty' option. If this still doesn't work well enough, start a new terminal to run the shell in. For example with: > :!xterm&
*21.3* Remembering information; viminfo After editing for a while you will have text in registers, marks in various files, a command line history filled with carefully crafted commands. When you exit Vim all of this is lost. But you can get it back! The viminfo file is designed to store status information: Command-line and Search pattern history Text in registers Marks for various files The buffer list Global variables Each time you exit Vim it will store this information in a file, the viminfo file. When Vim starts again, the viminfo file is read and the information restored. The 'viminfo' option is set by default to restore a limited number of items. You might want to set it to remember more information. This is done through the following command: > :set viminfo=string The string specifies what to save. The syntax of this string is an option character followed by an argument. The option/argument pairs are separated by commas. Take a look at how you can build up your own viminfo string. First, the ' option is used to specify how many files for which you save marks (a-z). Pick a nice even number for this option (1000, for instance). Your command now looks like this: > :set viminfo='1000 The f option controls whether global marks (A-Z and 0-9) are stored. If this option is 0, none are stored. If it is 1 or you do not specify an f option, the marks are stored. You want this feature, so now you have this: > :set viminfo='1000,f1 The " option controls how many lines are saved for each of the registers. By default, all the lines are saved. If 0, nothing is saved. To avoid adding thousands of lines to your viminfo file (which might never get used and makes starting Vim slower) you use a maximum of 500 lines: > :set viminfo='1000,f1,\"500 < Note: Since the " character starts a comment, it must be preceded with a backslash. Other options you might want to use: : number of lines to save from the command line history @ number of lines to save from the input line history / number of lines to save from the search history r removable media, for which no marks will be stored (can be used several times) ! global variables that start with an uppercase letter and don't contain lowercase letters h disable 'hlsearch' highlighting when starting % the buffer list (only restored when starting Vim without file arguments) c convert the text using 'encoding' n name used for the viminfo file (must be the last option) See the 'viminfo' option and |viminfo-file| for more information. When you run Vim multiple times, the last one exiting will store its information. This may cause information that previously exiting Vims stored to be lost. Each item can be remembered only once.  You exit Vim and go enjoy yourselves, forgetting all about your work. After a couple of weeks you start Vim, and type: > '0 And you are right back where you left Vim. So you can get on with your work. Vim creates a mark each time you exit Vim. The last one is '0. The postion that '0 pointed to is made '1. And '1 is made to '2, and so forth. Mark '9 is lost. The ":marks" command is useful to find out where '0 to '9 will take you. MOVE INFO FROM ONE VIM TO ANOTHER You can use the ":wviminfo" and ":rviminfo" commands to save and restore the information while still running Vim. This is useful for exchanging register contents between two instances of Vim, for example. In the first Vim do: > :wviminfo! ~/tmp/viminfo And in the second Vim do: > :rviminfo! ~/tmp/viminfo Obviously, the "w" stands for "write" and the "r" for "read". The ! character is used by ":wviminfo" to forcefully overwrite an existing file. When it is omitted, and the file exists, the information is merged into the file. The ! character used for ":rviminfo" means that all the information is used, this may overwrite existing information. Without the ! only information that wasn't set is used. These commands can also be used to store info and use it again later. You could make a directory full of viminfo files, each containing info for a different purpose.
*21.4* Sessions Suppose you are editing along, and it is the end of the day. You want to quit work and pick up where you left off the next day. You can do this by saving your editing session and restoring it the next day. A Vim session contains all the information about what you are editing. This includes things such as the file list, window layout, global variables, options and other information. (Exactly what is remembered is controlled by the 'sessionoptions' option, described below.) The following command creates a session file: > :mksession vimbook.vim Later if you want to restore this session, you can use this command: > :source vimbook.vim If you want to start Vim and restore a specific session, you can use the following command: > vim -S vimbook.vim This tells Vim to read a specific file on startup. The 'S' stands for session (actually, you can source any Vim script with -S, thus it might as well stand for "source"). The windows that were open are restored, with the same position and size as before. Mappings and option values are like before. What exactly is restored depends on the 'sessionoptions' option. The default value is "blank,buffers,curdir,folds,help,options,winsize". blank keep empty windows buffers all buffers, not only the ones in a window curdir the current directory folds folds, also manually created ones help the help window options all options and mappings winsize window sizes Change this to your liking. To also restore the size of the Vim window, for example, use: > :set sessionoptions+=resize SESSION HERE, SESSION THERE The obvious way to use sessions is when working on different projects. Suppose you store you session files in the directory "~/.vim". You are currently working on the "secret" project and have to switch to the "boring" project: > :wall :mksession! ~/.vim/secret.vim :source ~/.vim/boring.vim This first uses ":wall" to write all modified files. Then the current session is saved, using ":mksession!". This overwrites the previous session. The next time you load the secret session you can continue where you were at this point.  If you open help windows, split and close various window, and generally mess up the window layout, you can go back to the last saved session: > :source ~/.vim/boring.vim Thus you have complete control over whether you want to continue next time where you are now, by saving the current setup in a session, or keep the session file as a starting point. Another way of using sessions is to create a window layout that you like to use, and save this in a session. Then you can go back to this layout whenever you want. For example, this is a nice layout to use: +----------------------------------------+ | VIM - main help file | | | |Move around: Use the cursor keys, or "h| |help.txt================================| |explorer | | |dir |~ | |dir |~ | |file |~ | |file |~ | |file |~ | |file |~ | |~/=========|[No File]===================| | | +----------------------------------------+ This has a help window at the top, so that you can read this text. The narrow vertical window on the left contains a file explorer. This is a Vim plugin that lists the contents of a directory. You can select files to edit there. More about this in the next chapter. Create this from a just started Vim with: > :help CTRL-W w :vertical split ~/ You can resize the windows a bit to your liking. Then save the session with: > :mksession ~/.vim/mine.vim Now you can start Vim with this layout: > vim -S ~/.vim/mine.vim Hint: To open a file you see listed in the explorer window in the empty window, move the cursor to the filename and press "O". Double clicking with the mouse will also do this. UNIX AND MS-WINDOWS Some people have to do work on MS-Windows systems one day and on Unix another day. If you are one of them, consider adding "slash" and "unix" to 'sessionoptions'. The session files will then be written in a format that can be used on both systems. This is the command to put in your vimrc file: > :set sessionoptions+=unix,slash Vim will use the Unix format then, because the MS-Windows Vim can read and write Unix files, but Unix Vim can't read MS-Windows format session files. Similarly, MS-Windows Vim understands file names with / to separate names, but Unix Vim doesn't understand \. SESSIONS AND VIMINFO Sessions store many things, but not the position of marks, contents of registers and the command line history. You need to use the viminfo feature for these things. In most situations you will want to use sessions separately from viminfo. This can be used to switch to another session, but keep the command line history. And yank text into registers in one session, and paste it back in another session. You might prefer to keep the info with the session. You will have to do this yourself then. Example: > :mksession! ~/.vim/secret.vim :wviminfo! ~/.vim/secret.viminfo And to restore this again: > :source ~/.vim/secret.vim :rviminfo! ~/.vim/secret.viminfo
*21.5* Views A session stores the looks of the whole of Vim. When you want to store the properties for one window only, use a view. The use of a view is for when you want to edit a file in a specific way. For example, you have line numbers enabled with the 'number' option and defined a few folds. Just like with sessions, you can remember this view on the file and restore it later. Actually, when you store a session, it stores the view of each window. There are two basic ways to use views. The first is to let Vim pick a name for the view file. You can restore the view when you later edit the same file. To store the view for the current window: > :mkview Vim will decide where to store the view. When you later edit the same file you get the view back with this command: > :loadview That's easy, isn't it? Now you want to view the file without the 'number' option on, or with all folds open, you can set the options to make the window look that way. Then store this view with: > :mkview 1 Obviously, you can get this back with: > :loadview 1 Now you can switch between the two views on the file by using ":loadview" with and without the "1" argument. You can store up to ten views for the same file this way, one unnumbered and nine numbered 1 to 9. A VIEW WITH A NAME The second basic way to use views is by storing the view in a file with a name you chose. This view can be loaded while editing another file. Vim will then switch to editing the file specified in the view. Thus you can use this to quickly switch to editing another file, with all its options set as you saved them. For example, to save the view of the current file: > :mkview ~/.vim/main.vim You can restore it with: > :source ~/.vim/main.vim
*21.6* Modelines When editing a specific file, you might set options specifically for that file. Typing these commands each time is boring. Using a session or view for editing a file doesn't work when sharing the file between several people. The solution for this situation is adding a modeline to the file. This is a line of text that tells Vim the values of options, to be used in this file only. A typical example is a C program where you make indents by a multiple of 4 spaces. This requires setting the 'shiftwidth' option to 4. This modeline will do that: /* vim:set shiftwidth=4: */ ~ Put this line as one of the first or last five lines in the file. When editing the file, you will notice that 'shiftwidth' will have been set to four. When editing another file, it's set back to the default value of eight. For some files the modeline fits well in the header, thus it can be put at the top of the file. For text files and other files where the modeline gets in the way of the normal contents, put it at the end of the file. The 'modelines' option specifies how many lines at the start and end of the file are inspected for containing a modeline. To inspect ten lines: > :set modelines=10 The 'modeline' option can be used to switch this off. Do this when you are working as root or don't trust the files you are editing: > :set nomodeline Use this format for the modeline: any-text vim:set {option}={value} ... : any-text ~ The "any-text" indicates that you can put any text before and after the part that Vim will use. This allows making it look like a comment, like what was done above with /* and */. The " vim:" part is what makes Vim recognize this line. The must be white space before "vim", or "vim" must be at the start of the line. Thus using something like "gvim:" will not work. The part between the colons is a ":set" command. It works the same way as typing the ":set" command, except that you need to insert a backslash before a colon (otherwise it would be seen as the end of the modeline). Another example: // vim:set textwidth=72 dir=c\:\tmp: use c:\tmp here ~ There is an extra backslash before the first colon, so that it's included in the ":set" command. The text after the second colon is ignored, thus a remark can be placed there. For more details see |modeline|.
*usr_22.txt* For Vim version 6.1. Last change: 2001 Sep 03 Finding the file to edit Files can be found everywhere. So how do you find them? Vim offers various ways to browse the directory tree. There are commands to jump to a file that is mentioned in another. And Vim remembers which files have been edited before. |22.1| The file explorer |22.2| The current directory |22.3| Finding a file |22.4| The buffer list
*22.1* The file explorer Vim has a plugin that makes it possible to edit a directory. Try this: > :edit . Through the magic of autocommands and Vim scripts, the window will be filled with the contents of the directory. It looks like this: " Press ? for keyboard shortcuts ~ " Sorted by name (.bak,~,.o,.h,.info,.swp,.obj,.orig,.rej at end of list) ~ "= /home/mool/vim/vim6/runtime/doc/ ~ ../ ~ check/ ~ Makefile ~ autocmd.txt ~ change.txt ~ eval.txt~ ~ filetype.txt~ ~ help.txt.info ~ You can see these items: 1. A comment about using ? to get help for the functionality of the file explorer. 2. The second line mentions how the items in the directory are listed. They can be sorted in several ways. 3. The third line is the name of the current directory. 4. The "../" directory item. This is the parent directory. 5. The directory names. 6. The ordinary file names. As mentioned in the second line, some are not here but "at the end of the list". 7. The less ordinary file names. You are expected to use these less often, therefore they have been moved to the end. If you have syntax highlighting enabled, the different parts are highlighted to make it easier to spot them. You can use Normal mode Vim commands to move around in the text. For example, move to a file and press <Enter>. Now you are editing that file. To go back to the explorer use ":edit ." again. CTRL-O also works. Try using <Enter> while the cursor is on a directory name. The result is that the explorer moves into that directory and displays the items found there. Pressing <Enter> on the first directory "../" moves you one level higher. Pressing "-" does the same thing, without the need to move to the "../" item first. You can press ? to get short help on the things you can do in the explorer.  Depending on what command you use, the file appears somewhere: <Enter> Uses the current window. o Opens a new window. O Uses the previously visited window. p Uses the preview window, and moves the cursor back into the explorer window. |preview-window| The following commands are used to display other information: i Display the size and date for the file. Using i again will hide the information. s Use the field the cursor is in to sort on. First display the size and date with i. Then Move the cursor to the size of any file and press s. The files will now be sorted on size. Press s wile the cursor is on a date and the items will be sorted on date. r reverse the sorting order (either size or date) There are a few extra commands: c Change the current directory to the displayed directory. You can then type an ":edit" command for one of the files without prepending the path. R Rename the file under the cursor. You will be prompted for the new name. D Delete the file under the cursor. You will get a prompt to confirm this.
*22.2* The current directory Just like the shell, Vim has the concept of a current directory. Suppose you are in your home directory and want to edit several files in a directory "VeryLongFileName". You could do: > :edit VeryLongFileName/file1.txt :edit VeryLongFileName/file2.txt :edit VeryLongFileName/file3.txt To avoid much of the typing, do this: > :cd VeryLongFileName :edit file1.txt :edit file2.txt :edit file3.txt The ":cd" command changes the current directory. You can see what the current directory is with the ":pwd" command: > :pwd /home/Bram/VeryLongFileName Vim remembers the last directory that you used. Use "cd -" to go back to it. Example: > :pwd /home/Bram/VeryLongFileName :cd /etc :pwd /etc :cd - :pwd /home/Bram/VeryLongFileName :cd - :pwd /etc WINDOW LOCAL DIRECTORY When you split a window, both windows use the same current directory. When you want to edit a number of files somewhere else in the new window, you can make it use a different directory, without changing the current directory in the other window. This is called a local directory. > :pwd /home/Bram/VeryLongFileName :split :lcd /etc :pwd /etc CTRL-W w :pwd /home/Bram/VeryLongFileName So long as no ":lcd" command has been used, all windows share the same current directory. Doing a ":cd" command in one window will also change the current directory of the other window. For a window where ":lcd" has been used a different current directory is remembered. Using ":cd" or ":lcd" in other windows will not change it. When using a ":cd" command in a window that uses a different current directory, it will go back to using the shared directory.
*22.3* Finding a file You are editing a C program that contains this line: #include "inits.h" ~ You want to see what is in that "inits.h" file. Move the cursor on the name of the file and type: > gf Vim will find the file and edit it. What if the file is not in the current directory? Vim will use the 'path' option to find the file. This option is a list of directory names where to look for your file. Suppose you have your include files located in "c:/prog/include". This command will add it to the 'path' option: > :set path+=c:/prog/include This directory is an absolute path. No matter where you are, it will be the same place. What if you have located files in a subdirectory, below where the file is? Then you can specify a relative path name. This starts with a dot: > :set path+=./proto This tells Vim to look in the directory "proto", below the directory where the file in which you use "gf" is. Thus using "gf" on "inits.h" will make Vim look for "proto/inits.h", starting in the directory of the file. Without the "./", thus "proto", Vim would look in the "proto" directory below the current directory. And the current directory might not be where the file that you are editing is located. The 'path' option allows specifying the directories where to search for files in many more ways. See the help on the 'path' option. The 'isfname' option is used to decide which characters are included in the file name, and which ones are not (e.g., the " character in the example above). When you know the file name, but it's not to be found in the file, you can type it: > :find inits.h Vim will then use the 'path' option to try and locate the file. This is the same as the ":edit" command, except for the use of 'path'. To open the found file in a new window use CTRL-W f instead of "gf", or use ":sfind" instead of ":find".
*22.4* The buffer list The Vim editor uses the term buffer to describe a file being edited. Actually, a buffer is a copy of the file that you edit. When you finish changing the buffer, you write the contents of the buffer to the file. Buffers not only contain file contents, but also all the marks, settings, and other stuff that goes with it. HIDDEN BUFFERS Suppose you are editing the file one.txt and need to edit the file two.txt. You could simply use ":edit two.txt", but since you made changes to one.txt that won't work. You also don't want to write one.txt yet. Vim has a solution for you: > :hide edit two.txt The buffer "one.txt" disappears from the screen, but Vim still knows that you are editing this buffer, so it keeps the modified text. This is called a hidden buffer: The buffer contains text, but you can't see it. The ":hide" command argument is another command. It makes that command behave like the 'hidden' option was set. You could also set this option yourself. The effect is that when any buffer is abandoned, it becomes hidden. Be careful! When you have hidden buffers with changes, don't exit Vim without making sure you have saved all the buffers. INACTIVE BUFFERS When a buffer has been used once, Vim remembers some information about it. When it is not displayed in a window and it is not hidden, it is still in the buffer list. This is called an inactive buffer. Overview: Active Appears in a window, text loaded. Hidden Not in a window, text loaded. Inactive Not in a window, no text loaded. The inactive buffers are remembered, because Vim keeps information about them, like marks. And remembering the file name is useful too, so that you can see which files you have edited. And edit them again. LISTING BUFFERS View the buffer list with this command: > :buffers A command which does the same, is not so obvious to list buffers, but is much shorter to type: > :ls The output could look like this: 1 #h "help.txt" line 62 ~ 2 %l+ "usr_21.txt" line 1 ~ 3 "usr_toc.txt" line 1 ~ The first column contains the buffer number. You can use this to edit the buffer without having to type the name, see below. After the buffer number come the flags. Then the name of the file and the line number where the cursor was the last time. The flags that can appear are these (from left to right): u Buffer is unlisted |unlisted-buffer|. % Current buffer. # Alternate buffer. l Buffer is loaded and displayed. h Buffer is loaded but hidden. = Buffer is read-only. - Buffer is not modifiable, the 'modifiable' option is off. + Buffer has been modified. EDITING A BUFFER You can edit a buffer by its number. That avoids having to type the file name: > :buffer 2 But the only way to know the number is by looking in the buffer list. You can use the name, or part of it, instead: > :buffer help Vim will find a best match for the name you type. If there is only one buffer that matches the name, it will be used. In this case "help.txt". To open a buffer in a new window: > :sbuffer 3 This works with a name as well. USING THE BUFFER LIST You can move around in the buffer list with these commands: :bnext go to next buffer :bprevious go to previous buffer :bfirst go to the first buffer :blast go to the last buffer To remove a buffer from the list, use this command: > :bdelete 3 Again, this also works with a name. If you delete a buffer that was active (visible in a window), that window will be closed. If you delete the current buffer, the current window will be closed. If it was the last window, Vim will find another buffer to edit. You can't be editing nothing! Note: Even after removing the buffer with ":bdelete" Vim still remembers it. It's actually made "unlisted", it no longer appears in the list from ":buffers". The ":buffers!" command will list unlisted buffers (yes, Vim can do the impossible). To really make Vim forget about a buffer, use ":bwipe". Also see the 'buflisted' option.
*usr_23.txt* For Vim version 6.1. Last change: 2001 Sep 03 Editing other files This chapter is about editing files that are not ordinary files. With Vim you can edit files that are compressed or encrypted. Some files need to be accessed over the internet. With some restrictions, binary files can be edited as well. |23.1| DOS, Mac and Unix files |23.2| Files on the internet |23.3| Encryption |23.4| Binary files |23.5| Compressed files
*23.1* DOS, Mac and Unix files Back in the early days, the old Teletype machines used two characters to start a new line. One to move the carriage back to the first position (carriage return, <CR>), another to move the paper up (line feed, <LF>). When computers came out, storage was expensive. Some people decided that they did not need two characters for end-of-line. The UNIX people decided they could use <Line Feed> only for end-of-line. The Apple people standardized on <CR>. The MS-DOS (and Microsoft Windows) folks decided to keep the old <CR><LF>. This means that if you try to move a file from one system to another, you have line-break problems. The Vim editor automatically recognizes the different file formats and handles things properly behind your back. The option 'fileformats' contains the various formats that will be tried when a new file is edited. The following command, for example, tells Vim to try UNIX format first and MS-DOS format second: > :set fileformats=unix,dos You will notice the format in the message you get when editing a file. You don't see anything if you edit a native file format. Thus editing a Unix file on Unix won't result in a remark. But when you edit a dos file, Vim will notify you of this: "/tmp/test" [dos] 3L, 71C ~ For a Mac file you would see "[mac]". The detected file format is stored in the 'fileformat' option. To see which format you have, execute the following command: > :set fileformat? The three names that Vim uses are: unix <LF> dos <CR><LF> mac <CR> USING THE MAC FORMAT On Unix, <LF> is used to break a line. It's not unusual to have a <CR> character halfway a line. Incidentally, this happens quite often in Vi (and Vim) scripts. On the Macintosh, where <CR> is the line break character, it's possible to have a <LF> character halfway a line. The result is that it's not possible to be 100% sure whether a file containing both <CR> and <LF> characters is a Mac or a Unix file. Therefore, Vim assumes that on Unix you probably won't edit a Mac file, and doesn't check for this type of file. To check for this format anyway, add "mac" to 'fileformats': > :set fileformats+=mac Then Vim will take a guess at the file format. Watch out for situations where Vim guesses wrong. OVERRULING THE FORMAT If you use the good old Vi and try to edit an MS-DOS format file, you will find that each line ends with a ^M character. (^M is <CR>). The automatic detection avoids this. Suppose you do want to edit the file that way? Then you need to overrule the format: > :edit ++ff=unix file.txt The "++" string is an item that tells Vim that an option name follows, which overrules the default for this single command. "++ff" is used for 'fileformat'. You could also use "++ff=mac" or "++ff=dos". This doesn't work for any option, only "++ff" and "++enc" are currently implemented. The full names "++fileformat" and "++encoding" also work. CONVERSION You can use the 'fileformat' option to convert from one file format to another. Suppose, for example, that you have an MS-DOS file named README.TXT that you want to convert to UNIX format. Start by editing the MS-DOS format file: > vim README.TXT Vim will recognize this as a dos format file. Now change the file format to UNIX: > :set fileformat=unix :write The file is written in Unix format.
*23.2* Files on the internet Someone sends you an e-mail message, which refers to a file by its URL. For example: You can find the information here: ~ ftp://ftp.vim.org/pub/vim/README ~ You could start a program to download the file, save it on your local disk and then start Vim to edit it. There is a much simpler way. Move the cursor to any character of the URL. Then use this command: > gf With a bit of luck, Vim will figure out which program to use for downloading the file, download it and edit the copy. To open the file in a new window use CTRL-W f. If something goes wrong you will get an error message. It's possible that the URL is wrong, you don't have permission to read it, the network connection is down, etc. Unfortunately, it's hard to tell the cause of the error. You might want to try the manual way of downloading the file. Accessing files over the internet works with the netrw plugin. Currently URLs with these formats are recognized: ftp:// uses ftp rcp:// uses rcp scp:// uses scp http:// uses wget (reading only) Vim doesn't do the communication itself, it relies on the mentioned programs to be available on your computer. On most Unix systems "ftp" and "rcp" will be present. "scp" and "wget" might need to be installed. Vim detects these URLs for each command that starts editing a new file, also with ":edit" and ":split", for example. Write commands also work, except for http://. For more information, also about passwords, see |netrw|.
*23.3* Encryption Some information you prefer to keep to yourself. For example, when writing a test on a computer that students also use. You don't want clever students to figure out a way to read the questions before the exam starts.  To start editing a new file with encryption, use the "-x" argument to start Vim. Example: > vim -x exam.txt Vim prompts you for a key used for encrypting and decrypting the file: Enter encryption key: ~ Carefully type the secret key now. You cannot see the characters you type, they will be replaced by stars. To avoid the situation that a typing mistake will cause trouble, Vim asks you to enter the key again: Enter same key again: ~ You can now edit this file normally and put in all your secrets. When you finish editing the file and tell Vim to exit, the file is encrypted and written. When you edit the file with Vim, it will ask you to enter the same key again. You don't need to use the "-x" argument. You can also use the normal ":edit" command. Vim adds a magic string to the file by which it recognizes that the file was encrypted. If you try to view this file using another program, all you get is garbage. Also, if you edit the file with Vim and enter the wrong key, you get garbage. Vim does not have a mechanism to check if the key is the right one (this makes it much harder to break the key). SWITCHING ENCRYPTION ON AND OFF To disable the encryption of a file, set the 'key' option to an empty string: > :set key= The next time you write the file this will be done without encryption. Setting the 'key' option to enable encryption is not a good idea, because the password appears in the clear. Anyone shoulder-surfing can read your password. To avoid this problem, the ":X" command was created. It asks you for an encryption key, just like the "-x" argument did: > :X Enter encryption key: ****** Enter same key again: ****** LIMITS ON ENCRYPTION The encryption algorithm used by Vim is weak. It is good enough to keep out the casual prowler, but not good enough to keep out a cryptology expert with lots of time on his hands. Also you should be aware that the swap file is not encrypted; so while you are editing, people with superuser privileges can read the unencrypted text from this file. One way to avoid letting people read your swap file is to avoid using one. If the -n argument is supplied on the command line, no swap file is used (instead, Vim puts everything in memory). For example, to edit the encrypted file "file.txt" without a swap file use the following command: > vim -x -n file.txt When already editing a file, the swapfile can be disabled with: > :setlocal noswapfile Since there is no swapfile, recovery will be impossible. Save the file a bit more often to avoid the risk of losing your changes. While the file is in memory, it is in plain text. Anyone with privilege can look in the editor's memory and discover the contents of the file. If you use a viminfo file, be aware that the contents of text registers are written out in the clear as well. If you really want to secure the contents of a file, edit it only on a portable computer not connected to a network, use good encryption tools, and keep the computer locked up in a big safe when not in use.
*23.4* Binary files You can edit binary files with Vim. Vim wasn't really made for this, thus there are a few restrictions. But you can read a file, change a character and write it back, with the result that only that one character was changed and the file is identical otherwise. To make sure that Vim does not use its clever tricks in the wrong way, add the "-b" argument when starting Vim: > vim -b datafile This sets the 'binary' option. The effect of this is that unexpected side effects are turned off. For example, 'textwidth' is set to zero, to avoid automatic formatting of lines. And files are always read in Unix file format. Binary mode can be used to change a message in a program. Be careful not to insert or delete any characters, it would stop the program from working. Use "R" to enter replace mode. Many characters in the file will be unprintable. To see them in Hex format: > :set display=uhex Otherwise, the "ga" command can be used to see the value of the character under the cursor. The output, when the cursor is on an <Esc>, looks like this: <^[> 27, Hex 1b, Octal 033 ~ There might not be many line breaks in the file. To get some overview switch the 'wrap' option off: > :set nowrap BYTE POSITION To see on which byte you are in the file use this command: > g CTRL-G The output is verbose: Col 9-16 of 9-16; Line 277 of 330; Word 1806 of 2058; Byte 10580 of 12206 ~ The last two numbers are the byte position in the file and the total number of bytes. This takes into account how 'fileformat' changes the number of bytes that a line break uses. To move to a specific byte in the file, use the "go" command. For example, to move to byte 2345: > 2345go USING XXD A real binary editor shows the text in two ways: as it is and in hex format. You can do this in Vim by first converting the file with the "xxd" program. This comes with Vim. First edit the file in binary mode: > vim -b datafile Now convert the file to a hex dump with xxd: > :%!xxd The text will look like this: 0000000: 1f8b 0808 39d7 173b 0203 7474 002b 4e49 ....9..;..tt.+NI ~ 0000010: 4b2c 8660 eb9c ecac c462 eb94 345e 2e30 K,.`.....b..4^.0 ~ 0000020: 373b 2731 0b22 0ca6 c1a2 d669 1035 39d9 7;'1.".....i.59. ~ You can now view and edit the text as you like. Vim treats the information as ordinary text. Changing the hex does not cause the printable character to be changed, or the other way around. Finally convert it back with: > :%!xxd -r Only changes in the hex part are used. Changes in the printable text part on the right are ignored. See the manual page of xxd for more information.
*23.5* Compressed files This is easy: You can edit a compressed file just like any other file. The "gzip" plugin takes care of decompressing the file when you edit it. And compressing it again when you write it. These compression methods are currently supported: .Z compress .gz gzip .bz2 bzip2 Vim uses the mentioned programs to do the actual compression and decompression. You might need to install the programs first.
*usr_24.txt* For Vim version 6.1. Last change: 2001 Sep 27 Inserting quickly When entering text, Vim offers various ways to reduce the number of keystrokes and avoid typing mistakes. Use Insert mode completion to repeat previously typed words. Abbreviate long words to short ones. Type characters that aren't on your keyboard. |24.1| Making corrections |24.2| Showing matches |24.3| Completion |24.4| Repeating an insert |24.5| Copying from another line |24.6| Inserting a register |24.7| Abbreviations |24.8| Entering special characters |24.9| Digraphs |24.10| Normal mode commands
*24.1* Making corrections The <BS> key was already mentioned. It deletes the character just before the cursor. The <Del> key does the same for the character under (after) the cursor). When you typed a whole word wrong, use CTRL-W: The horse had fallen to the sky ~ CTRL-W The horse had fallen to the ~ If you really messed up a line and want to start over, use CTRL-U to delete it. This keeps the text after the cursor and the indent. Only the text from the first non-blank to the cursor is deleted. With the cursor on the "f" of "fallen" in the next line pressing CTRL-U does this: The horse had fallen to the ~ CTRL-U fallen to the ~ When you spot a mistake a few words back, you need to move the cursor there to correct it. For example, you typed this: The horse had follen to the ground ~ You need to change "follen" to "fallen". With the cursor at the end, you would type this to correct it: > <Esc>4blraA < get out of Insert mode <Esc> four words back 4b move on top of the "o" l replace with "a" ra restart Insert mode A Another way to do this: > <C-Left><C-Left><C-Left><C-Left><Right><Del>a<End> < four words back <C-Left><C-Left><C-Left><C-Left> move on top of the "o" <Right> delete the "o" <Del> insert an "a" a go to end of the line <End> This uses special keys to move around, while remaining in Insert mode. This resembles what you would do in a modeless editor. It's easier to remember, but takes more time (you have to move your hand from the letters to the cursor keys, and the <End> key is hard to press without looking at the keyboard). These special keys are most useful when writing a mapping that doesn't leave Insert mode. The extra typing doesn't matter then. An overview of the keys you can use in Insert mode: <C-Home> to start of the file <PageUp> a whole screenful up <Home> to start of line <S-Left> one word left <C-Left> one word left <S-Right> one word right <C-Right> one word right <End> to end of the line <PageDown> a whole screenful down <C-End> to end of the file There are a few more, see |ins-special-special|.
*24.2* Showing matches When you type a ) it would be nice to see with which ( it matches. To make Vim do that use this command: > :set showmatch When you now type a text like "(example)", as soon as you type the ) Vim will briefly move the cursor to the matching (, keep it there for half a second, and move back to where you were typing. In case there is not matching (, Vim will beep. Then you know that you might have forgotten the ( somewhere, or typed a ) too many. The match will also be shown for [] and {} pairs. You don't have to wait with typing the next character, as soon as Vim sees it the cursor will move back and inserting continues as before. You can change the time Vim waits with the 'matchtime' option. For example, to make Vim wait one and a half second: > :set matchtime=15 The time is specified in tenths of a second.
*24.3* Completion Vim can automatically complete words on insertion. You type the first part of a word, press CTRL-P, and Vim guesses the rest. Suppose, for example, that you are creating a C program and want to type in the following: total = ch_array[0] + ch_array[1] + ch_array[2]; ~ You start by entering the following: total = ch_array[0] + ch_ ~ At this point, you tell Vim to complete the word using the command CTRL-P. Vim searches for a word that starts with what's in front of the cursor. In this case, it is "ch_", which matches with the word ch_array. So typing CTRL-P gives you the following: total = ch_array[0] + ch_array ~ After a little more typing, you get this (ending in a space): total = ch_array[0] + ch_array[1] + ~ If you now type CTRL-P Vim will search again for a word that completes the word before the cursor.  Typing CTRL-P again gives you the next word that matches, in this case "total". A third CTRL-P searches further back. If there is nothing else, it causes the editor to run out of words, so it returns to the original text, which is nothing. A fourth CTRL-P causes the editor to start over again with "ch_array". To search forward, use CTRL-N. Since the search wraps around the end of the file, CTRL-N and CTRL-P will find the same matches, but in a different sequence. Hint: CTRL-N is Next-match and CTRL-P is Previous-match. The Vim editor goes through a lot of effort to find words to complete. By default, it searches the following places: 1. Current file 2. Files in other windows 3. Other loaded files (hidden buffers) 4. Files which are not loaded (inactive buffers) 5. Tag files 6. All files #included by the current file OPTIONS You can customize the search order with the 'complete' option. The 'ignorecase' option is used. When it is set, case differences are ignored when searching for matches. A special option for completion is 'infercase'. This is useful to find matches while ignoring case ('ignorecase' must be set) but still using the case of the word typed so far. Thus if you type "For" and Vim finds a match "fortunately", it will result in "Fortunately". COMPLETING SPECIFIC ITEMS If you know what you are looking for, you can use these commands to complete with a certain type of item: CTRL-X CTRL-F file names CTRL-X CTRL-L whole lines CTRL-X CTRL-D macro definitions (also in included files) CTRL-X CTRL-I current and included files CTRL-X CTRL-K words from a dictionary CTRL-X CTRL-T words from a thesaurus CTRL-X CTRL-] tags CTRL-X CTRL-V Vim command line After each of them CTRL-N can be used to find the next match, CTRL-P to find the previous match. More information for each of these commands here: |ins-completion|. COMPLETING FILE NAMES Let's take CTRL-X CTRL-F as an example. This will find file names. It scans the current directory for files and displays each one that matches the word in front of the cursor. Suppose, for example, that you have the following files in the current directory: main.c sub_count.c sub_done.c sub_exit.c Now enter Insert mode and start typing: The exit code is in the file sub ~ At this point, you enter the command CTRL-X CTRL-F. Vim now completes the current word "sub" by looking at the files in the current directory. The first match is sub_count.c. This is not the one you want, so you match the next file by typing CTRL-N. This match is sub_done.c. Typing CTRL-N again takes you to sub_exit.c. The results: The exit code is in the file sub_exit.c ~ If the file name starts with / (Unix) or C:\ (MS-Windows) you can find all files in the file system. For example, type "/u" and CTRL-X CTRL-F. This will match "/usr" (this is on Unix): the file is found in /usr/ ~ If you now press CTRL-N you go back to "/u". Instead, to accept the "/usr/" and go one directory level deeper, use CTRL-X CTRL-F again: the file is found in /usr/X11R6/ ~ The results depend on what is found in your file syste, of course. The matches are sorted alphabetically.
*24.4* Repeating an insert If you press CTRL-A, the editor inserts the text you typed the last time you were in insert mode. Assume, for example, that you have a file that begins with the following: "file.h" ~ /* Main program begins */ ~ You edit this file by inserting "#include " at the beginning of the first line: #include "file.h" ~ /* Main program begins */ ~ You go down to the beginning of the next line using the commands "j^". You now start to insert a new "#include" line. So you type: > i CTRL-A The result is as follows: #include "file.h" ~ #include /* Main program begins */ ~ The "#include " was inserted because CTRL-A inserts the text of the previous insert. Now you type "main.h"<Enter> to finish the line: #include "file.h" ~ #include "main.h" ~ /* Main program begins */ ~ The CTRL-@ command does a CTRL-A and then exits Insert mode. That's a quick way of doing exactly the same insertion again.
*24.5* Copying from another line The CTRL-Y command inserts the character above the cursor. This is useful when you are duplicating a previous line. For example, you have this line of C code: b_array[i]->s_next = a_array[i]->s_next; ~ Now you need to type the same line, but with "s_prev" instead of "s_next". Start the new line, and press CTRL-Y 14 times, until you are at the "n" of "next": b_array[i]->s_next = a_array[i]->s_next;~ b_array[i]->s_ ~ Now you type "prev": b_array[i]->s_next = a_array[i]->s_next; ~ b_array[i]->s_prev ~ Continue pressing CTRL-Y until the following "next": b_array[i]->s_next = a_array[i]->s_next;~ b_array[i]->s_prev = a_array[i]->s_ ~ Now type "prev;" to finish it off. The CTRL-E command acts like CTRL-Y except it inserts the character below the cursor.
*24.6* Inserting a register The command CTRL-R {register} inserts the contents of the register. This is useful to avoid having to type a long word. For example, you need to type this: r = VeryLongFunction(a) + VeryLongFunction(b) + VeryLongFunction(c) ~ The function name is defined in a different file. Edit that file and move the cursor on top of the function name there, and yank it into register v: > "vyiw "v is the register specification, "yiw" is yank-inner-word. Now edit the file where the new line is to be inserted, and type the first letters: r = ~ Now use CTRL-R v to insert the function name: r = VeryLongFunction ~ You continue to type the characters in between the function name, and use CTRL-R v two times more. You could have done the same with completion. Using a register is useful when there are many words that start with the same characters. If the register contains characters such as <BS> or other special characters, they are interpreted as if they had been typed from the keyboard. If you do not want this to happen (you really want the <BS> to be inserted in the text), use the command CTRL-R CTRL-R {register}.
*24.7* Abbreviations An abbreviation is a short word that takes the place of a long one. For example, "ad" stands for "advertisement". Vim enables you to type an abbreviation and then will automatically expand it for you. To tell Vim to expand "ad" into "advertisement" every time you insert it, use the following command: > :iabbrev ad advertisement Now, when you type "ad", the whole word 'advertisement" will be inserted into the text. This is triggered by typing a character that can't be part of a word, for example a space: What Is Entered What You See I saw the a I saw the a ~ I saw the ad I saw the ad ~ I saw the ad<Space> I saw the advertisement<Space> ~ The expansion doesn't happen when typing just "ad". That allows you to type a word like "add", which will not get expanded. Only whole words are checked for abbreviations. ABBREVIATING SEVERAL WORDS It is possible to define an abbreviation that results in multiple words. For example, to define "JB" as "Jack Benny", use the following command: > :iabbrev JB Jack Benny As a programmer, I use two rather unusual abbreviations: > :iabbrev #b /**************************** :iabbrev #e <Space>****************************/ These are used for creating boxed comments. The comment starts with #b, which draws the top line. I then type the comment text and use #e to draw the bottom line. Notice that the #e abbreviation begins with a space. In other words, the first two characters are space-star. Usually Vim ignores spaces between the abbreviation and the expansion. To avoid that problem, I spell space as seven characters: <, S, p, a, c, e, >. Note: ":iabbrev" is a long word to type. ":iab" works just as well. That's abbreviating the abbreviate command! FIXING TYPING MISTAKES It's very common to make the same typing mistake every time. For example, typing "teh" instead of "the". You can fix this with an abbreviation: > :abbreviate teh the You can add a whole list of these. Add one each time you discover a common mistake. LISTING ABBREVIATIONS The ":abbreviate" command lists the abbreviations: :abbreviate i #e ****************************/ i #b /**************************** i JB Jack Benny i ad advertisement ! teh the The "i" in the first column indicates Insert mode. These abbreviations are only active in Insert mode. Other possible characters are: c Command-line mode :cabbrev ! both Insert and Command-line mode :abbreviate Since abbreviations are not often useful in Command-line mode, you will mostly use the ":iabbrev" command. That avoids, for example, that "ad" gets expanded when typing a command like: > :edit ad DELETING ABBREVIATIONS To get rid of an abbreviation, use the ":unabbreviate" command. Suppose you have the following abbreviation: > :abbreviate @f fresh You can remove it with this command: > :unabbreviate @f While you type this, you will notice that @f is expanded to "fresh". Don't worry about this, Vim understands it anyway (except when you have an abbreviation for "fresh", but that's very unlikely). To remove all the abbreviations: > :abclear ":unabbreviate" and ":abclear" also come in the variants for Insert mode ("iunabbeviate and ":iabclear") and Command-line mode (":cunabbreviate" and "cabclear"). REMAPPING ABBREVIATIONS There is one thing to watch out for when defining an abbreviation: The resulting string should not be mapped. For example: > :abbreviate @a adder :imap dd disk-door When you now type @a, you will get "adisk-doorer". That's not what you want. To avoid this, use the ":noreabbrev" command. It does the same as ":abbreviate", but avoids that the resulting string is used for mappings: > :noreabbrev @a adder Fortunately, it's unlikely that the result of an abbreviation is mapped.
*24.8* Entering special characters The CTRL-V command is used to insert the next character literally. In other words, any special meaning the character has, it will be ignored. For example: > CTRL-V <Esc> Inserts an escape character. Thus you don't leave Insert mode. (Don't type the space after CTRL-V, it's only to make this easier to read). Note: On MS-Windows CTRL-V is used to paste text. Use CTRL-Q instead of CTRL-V. On Unix, on the other hand, CTRL-Q does not work on some terminals, because it has a special meaning. You can also use the command CTRL-V {digits} to insert a character with the decimal number {digits}. For example, the character number 127 is the <Del> character (but not necessarily the <Del> key!). To insert <Del> type: > CTRL-V 127 You can enter characters up to 255 this way. When you type fewer than two digits, a non-digit will terminate the command. To avoid the need of typing a non-digit, prepend one or two zeros to make three digits. All the next commands insert a <Tab> and then a dot: CTRL-V 9. CTRL-V 09. CTRL-V 009. To enter a character in hexadecimal, use an "x" after the CTRL-V: > CTRL-V x7f This also goes up to character 255 (CTRL-V xff). You can use "o" to type a character as an octal number and two more methods allow you to type up to a 16 bit and a 32 bit number (e.g., for a Unicode character): > CTRL-V o123 CTRL-V u1234 CTRL-V U12345678
*24.9* Digraphs Some characters are not on the keyboard. For example, the copyright character (�). To type these characters in Vim, you use digraphs, where two characters represent one. To enter a �, for example, you press three keys: > CTRL-K Co To find out what digraphs are available, use the following command: > :digraphs Vim will display the digraph table. Here are three lines of it: AC ~_ 159 NS | 160 !I � 161 Ct � 162 Pd � 163 Cu � 164 Ye � 165 ~ BB � 166 SE � 167 ': � 168 Co � 169 -a � 170 << � 171 NO � 172 ~ -- � 173 Rg � 174 'm � 175 DG � 176 +- � 177 2S � 178 3S � 179 ~ This shows, for example, that the digraph you get by typing CTRL-K Pd is the character (�). This is character number 163 (decimal). Pd is short for Pound. Most digraphs are selected to give you a hint about the character they will produce. If you look through the list you will understand the logic. You can exchange the first and second character, if there is no digraph for that combination. Thus CTRL-K dP also works. Since there is no digraph for "dP" Vim will also search for a "Pd" digraph. Note: The digraphs depend on the character set that Vim assumes you are using. On MS-DOS they are different from MS-Windows. Always use ":digraphs" to find out which digraphs are currently available. You can define your own digraphs. Example: > :digraph a" � This defines that CTRL-K a" inserts an � character. You can also specify the character with a decimal number. This defines the same digraph: > :digraph a" 228 More information about digraphs here: |digraphs| Another way to insert special characters is with a keymap. More about that here: |45.5|
*24.10* Normal mode commands Insert mode offers a limited number of commands. In Normal mode you have many more. When you want to use one, you usually leave Insert mode with <Esc>, execute the Normal mode command, and re-enter Insert mode with "i" or "a". There is a quicker way. With CTRL-O {command} you can execute any Normal mode command from Insert mode. For example, to delete from the cursor to the end of the line: > CTRL-O D You can execute only one Normal mode command this way. But you can specify a register or a count. A more complicated example: > CTRL-O "g3dw This deletes up to the third word into register g.
*usr_25.txt* For Vim version 6.1. Last change: 2002 Feb 24 Editing formatted text Text hardly ever comes in one sentence per line. This chapter is about breaking sentences to make them fit on a page and other formatting. Vim also has useful features for editing single-line paragraphs and tables. |25.1| Breaking lines |25.2| Aligning text |25.3| Indents and tabs |25.4| Dealing with long lines |25.5| Editing tables
*25.1* Breaking lines Vim has a number of functions that make dealing with text easier. By default, the editor does not perform automatic line breaks. In other words, you have to press <Enter> yourself. This is useful when you are writing programs where you want to decide where the line ends. It is not so good when you are creating documentation and want the text to be at most 70 character wide. If you set the 'textwidth' option, Vim automatically inserts line breaks. Suppose, for example, that you want a very narrow column of only 30 characters. You need to execute the following command: > :set textwidth=30 Now you start typing (ruler added): 1 2 3<PHONE_NUMBER>1234567890123456789012345 I taught programming for a whi ~ If you type "l" next, this makes the line longer than the 30-character limit. When Vim sees this, it inserts a line break and you get the following: 1 2 3<PHONE_NUMBER>1234567890123456789012345 I taught programming for a ~ whil ~ Continuing on, you can type in the rest of the paragraph: 1 2 3<PHONE_NUMBER>1234567890123456789012345 I taught programming for a ~ while. One time, I was stopped ~ by the Fort Worth police, ~ because my homework was too ~ hard. True story. ~ You do not have to type newlines; Vim puts them in automatically. Note: The 'wrap' option makes Vim display lines with a line break, but this doesn't insert a line break in the file. REFORMATTING The Vim editor is not a word processor. In a word processor, if you delete something at the beginning of the paragraph, the line breaks are reworked. In Vim they are not; so if you delete the word "programming" from the first line, all you get is a short line: 1 2 3<PHONE_NUMBER>1234567890123456789012345 I taught for a ~ while. One time, I was stopped ~ by the Fort Worth police, ~ because my homework was too ~ hard. True story. ~ This does not look good. To get the paragraph into shape you use the "gq" operator. Let's first use this with a Visual selection. Starting from the first line, type: > v4jgq "v" to start Visual mode, "4j' to move to the end of the paragraph and then the "gq" operator. The result is: 1 2 3<PHONE_NUMBER>1234567890123456789012345 I taught for a while. One ~ time, I was stopped by the ~ Fort Worth police, because my ~ homework was too hard. True ~ story. ~ Since "gq" is an operator, you can use one of the three ways to select the text it works on: With Visual mode, with a movement and with a text object. The example above could also be done with "gq4j". That's less typing, but you have to know the line count. A more useful motion command is "}". This moves to the end of a paragraph. Thus "gq}" formats from the cursor to the end of the current paragraph. A very useful text object to use with "gq" is the paragraph. Try this: > gqap "ap" stands for "a-paragraph". This formats the text of one paragraph (separated by empty lines). Also the part before the cursor. If you have your paragraphs separated by empty lines, you can format the whole file by typing this: > gggqG "gg" to move to the first line, "gqG" to format until the last line. Warning: If your paragraphs are not properly separated, they will be joined together. A common mistake is to have a line with a space or Tab. That's a blank line, but not an empty line. Vim is able format more than just plain text. See |fo-table| for how to change this. See the 'joinspaces' option to change the number of spaces used after a full stop. It is possible to use an external program for formatting. This is useful if your text can't be properly formatted with Vim's builtin command. See the 'formatprg' option.