1 # Why vi Rocks
2 
3 **[vi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi)** is the _de facto_ standard
4 Unix editor, you find it in every *NIX derived OS.
5 
6 Here you will find a collection of commands, command sequences in
7 [vi(1)](https://man.openbsd.org/vi.1)/[ex(1)](https://man.openbsd.org/ex.1)
8 or with 3rd party unitilities which make
9 **[vi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi)** rock. These all work
10 with at least [nvi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvi) 1.79 and
11 2.1.3 (unicode).
12 
13 Helpful documents:<br />
14 - [Roman Zolotarev: Edit text with vi(1)](https://rgz.ee/vi.html)<br />
15 - [Jeff W: vi help](http://www.jeffw.com/vi/vi_help.txt)<br />
16 - [Maarten Litmaath: vi reference](http://www.ungerhu.com/jxh/vi.html)<br />
17 - [alphanrrrd: extremely concise cheatsheet](http://www.alphanrrrd.org/vi.html)<br />
18 - [ViEmu: Graphical vi cheatsheet](http://www.viemu.com/a_vi_vim_graphical_cheat_sheet_tutorial.html)
19 
20 #### Yank / delete an arbitrary number of lines
21 
22 	1) mark the first line: mk
23 	2) move to last line
24 	3a) yank: y'k
25 	3b) delete: d'k
26 	4) move to destination line
27 	5) put with P or p
28 
29 #### Apply regex to an arbitrary number of lines
30 
31 	1) mark the first line: mk
32 	2) mark the last line: ml
33 	:'k,'ls/regex/power/g
34 
35 #### Add # to block of text
36 
37 	:'k,'ls/^/#/
38 
39 #### Remove trailing whitespace of block of text
40 
41 	:'k,'ls/\ *$//
42 
43 #### Search and replace PATHs, using different delimiter
44 
45 	:%s#/usr/local/log#/var/log#g
46 
47 #### Write file as root
48 
49 	:w !doas tee %
50 
51 #### Diff the file on disk with the file in the buffer
52 
53 	:w !diff -u % -
54 
55 #### Make a backup of the file on disk
56 
57 	:!cp % %.bak
58 
59 #### Sort all lines
60 
61 	:%!sort
62 
63 #### Sort paragraph
64 
65 	!}sort
66 
67 <sub><sup>} won't be shown in the command.</sup></sub>
68 
69 #### Sort from current line to EOF
70 
71 	!Gsort
72 
73 <sub><sup>G won't be shown in the command.</sup></sub>
74 
75 #### Uniq all lines
76 
77 	:%!uniq
78 
79 #### Uniq paragraph
80 
81 	!}uniq
82 
83 <sub><sup>} won't be shown in the command.</sup></sub>
84 
85 #### Uniq from current line to EOF
86 
87 	!Guniq
88 
89 <sub><sup>G won't be shown in the command.</sup></sub>
90 
91 #### Underline all lines starting with CHAPTER
92 
93 	:g/^CHAPTER /t.|s/./=/g
94 
95 #### Search for "pattern", print the containing function (start with def) and line number
96 
97 	:g/pattern/?^ *def ?#
98 
99 #### Add # to paragraph containing "pattern"
100 
101 	:g/pattern/?^$?+,//-s/^/#
102 
103 #### Sort content of multiline CSS blocks
104 
105 	:g/{$/+,/^}/-!sort
106 
107 #### Sort content of multiline CSS blocks (media queries)
108 
109 	:g/^[^@].*{$/+,/}/-!sort
110 
111 #### Reformat HTML paragraphs to a fixed width (40)
112 
113 	:g/<p>/+,/<\/p>/-!fmt -40
114 
115 #### Swap "Lastname, Firstname" to "Firstname, Lastname"
116 
117 	:%s/\(.*\), \(.*\)/\2 \1/
118 
119 #### Join all lines
120 
121 	:%j
122 
123 #### Copy (t) or move (m) lines containing "pattern"
124 
125 	:g/pattern/t$
126 	:g/pattern/m$
127 
128 #### Select a column (3rd) from formated text seperated by ':' 
129 
130 	:%!awk -F':' '{print $3}' 
131 
132 #### Insert the sum of a list of numbers after an arbitrary number of lines
133 
134 	1) mark the first line: mk
135 	2) mark the last line: ml
136 	:'k,'l!awk 'END{print "Total:", i}{i+=$1; print}'
137 
138 	More compact version:
139 	:'k,'l!awk 'END{print "Total:", i} ++i || 1'
140 
141 #### Email the current paragraph
142 
143 	:?^$?+,//-w !mail -s "<subject>" email@example.com