I Would like to share some commonly used VI editor command which will be useful for the beginners who love to work in VI editor.
This will be more useful for new Linux users.
| Purpose | vi Command |
| To insert new text | esc + i ( You have to press ‘escape’ key then ‘i’) |
| To save file | esc + : + w (Press ‘escape’ key then ‘colon’ and finally ‘w’) |
| To save file with file name (save as) | esc + : + w “filename” |
| To quit the vi editor | esc + : + q |
| To quit without saving | esc + : + q! |
| To save and quit vi editor | esc + : + wq |
| To search for specified word in forward direction | esc + /word (Press ‘escape’ key, type /word-to-find, for e.g. to find word ‘work‘, type as/work) |
| To continue with search | n |
| To search for specified word in backward direction | esc + ?word (Press ‘escape’ key, type word-to-find) |
| To copy the line where cursor is located | esc + yy |
| To paste the text just deleted or copied at the cursor | esc + p |
| To delete entire line where cursor is located | esc + dd |
| To delete word from cursor position | esc + dw |
| To Find all occurrence of given word and Replace then globally without confirmation | esc + :$s/word-to-find/word-to-replace/gFor. e.g. :$s/work/workers/gHere word “work” is replace with “workers” |
| To Find all occurrence of given word and Replace then globally with confirmation | esc + :$s/word-to-find/word-to-replace/cg |
| To run shell command like ls, cp or date etc within vi | esc + :!shell-commandFor e.g. :!pwd |
Original Author: M.S.Verman
