1 # Why vi Rocks
2 
3 A collection of commands, command sequences in [vi(1)](https://man.openbsd.org/vi.1)/[ex(1)](https://man.openbsd.org/ex.1) or with 3rd party unitilities.<br />
4 These all work with at least [nvi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvi) 1.79 and 2.1.3 (unicode).
5 
6 Helpful documents:<br />
7 - [Roman Zolotarev: Edit text with vi(1)](https://rgz.ee/vi.html)<br />
8 - [Jeff W: vi help](http://www.jeffw.com/vi/vi_help.txt)<br />
9 - [Maarten Litmaath: vi reference](http://www.ungerhu.com/jxh/vi.html)<br />
10 - [alphanrrrd: extremely concise cheatsheet](http://www.alphanrrrd.org/vi.html)<br />
11 - [ViEmu: Graphical vi cheatsheet](http://www.viemu.com/a_vi_vim_graphical_cheat_sheet_tutorial.html)
12 
13 #### Yank / delete an arbitrary number of lines
14 
15 	1) mark the first line: mk
16 	2) move to last line
17 	3a) yank: y'k
18 	3b) delete: d'k
19 	4) move to new line
20 	5) paste with P or p
21 
22 #### Apply regex to an arbitrary number of lines
23 
24 	1) mark the first line: mk
25 	2) mark the last line: ml
26 	:'k,'ls/regex/power/g
27 
28 #### Add # to block of text
29 
30 	:'k,'ls/.*/#&/
31 
32 #### Remove trailing whitespace of block of text
33 
34 	:'k,'ls/\ *$//
35 
36 #### Write file as root
37 
38 	:w !doas tee %
39 
40 #### Diff the file on disk with the file in the buffer
41 
42 	:w !diff -u % -
43 
44 #### Make a backup of the file on disk
45 
46 	:!cp % %.bak
47 
48 #### Sort all lines
49 
50 	:%!sort
51 
52 #### Sort paragraph
53 
54 	!}sort
55 
56 #### Uniq all lines
57 
58 	:%!uniq
59 
60 #### Uniq paragraph
61 
62 	!}uniq
63 
64 #### Join all lines
65 
66 	:%j
67 
68 #### Select a column (3rd) from formated text seperated by ':' 
69 
70 	:%!awk -F':' '{print $3}' 
71 
72