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1.1 root 1: .\" Copyright (c) 1980 The Regents of the University of California.
2: .\" All rights reserved.
3: .\"
4: .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted
5: .\" provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
6: .\" duplicated in all such forms and that any documentation,
7: .\" advertising materials, and other materials related to such
8: .\" distribution and use acknowledge that the software was developed
9: .\" by the University of California, Berkeley. The name of the
10: .\" University may not be used to endorse or promote products derived
11: .\" from this software without specific prior written permission.
12: .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR
13: .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED
14: .\" WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
15: .\"
16: .\" @(#)vi.in 6.2 (Berkeley) 11/27/89
17: .\"
18: .EH 'USD:15-%''An Introduction to Display Editing with Vi'
19: .OH 'An Introduction to Display Editing with Vi''USD:15-%'
20: .bd S 3
21: .if t .ds dg \(dg
22: .if n .ds dg +
23: .if t .ds dd \(dd
24: .if n .ds dd ++
25: .\".RP
26: .TL
27: An Introduction to Display Editing with Vi
28: .AU
29: William Joy
30: .AU
31: Mark Horton
32: .AI
33: Computer Science Division
34: Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
35: University of California, Berkeley
36: Berkeley, Ca. 94720
37: .AB
38: .PP
39: .I Vi
40: (visual) is a display oriented interactive text editor.
41: When using
42: .I vi
43: the screen of your terminal acts as a window into the file which you
44: are editing. Changes which you make to the file are reflected
45: in what you see.
46: .PP
47: Using
48: .I vi
49: you can insert new text any place in the file quite easily.
50: Most of the commands to
51: .I vi
52: move the cursor around in the file.
53: There are commands to move the cursor
54: forward and backward in units of characters, words,
55: sentences and paragraphs.
56: A small set of operators, like
57: .B d
58: for delete and
59: .B c
60: for change, are combined with the motion commands to form operations
61: such as delete word or change paragraph, in a simple and natural way.
62: This regularity and the mnemonic assignment of commands to keys makes the
63: editor command set easy to remember and to use.
64: .PP
65: .I Vi
66: will work on a large number of display terminals,
67: and new terminals are easily driven after editing a terminal description file.
68: While it is advantageous to have an intelligent terminal which can locally
69: insert and delete lines and characters from the display, the editor will
70: function quite well on dumb terminals over slow phone lines.
71: The editor makes allowance for the low bandwidth in these situations
72: and uses smaller window sizes and
73: different display updating algorithms to make best use of the
74: limited speed available.
75: .PP
76: It is also possible to use the command set of
77: .I vi
78: on hardcopy terminals, storage tubes and ``glass tty's'' using a one line
79: editing window; thus
80: .I vi's
81: command set is available on all terminals.
82: The full command set of the more traditional, line
83: oriented editor
84: .I ex
85: is available within
86: .I vi;
87: it is quite simple to switch between the two modes of editing.
88: .AE
89: .NH 1
90: Getting started
91: .PP
92: .FS
93: The financial support of an \s-2IBM\s0 Graduate Fellowship and the
94: National Science Foundation under grants MCS74-07644-A03 and MCS78-07291
95: is gratefully acknowledged.
96: .FE
97: This document provides a quick introduction to
98: .I vi.
99: (Pronounced \fIvee-eye\fP.)
100: You should be running
101: .I vi
102: on a file you are familiar with while you are reading this.
103: The first part of this document (sections 1 through 5)
104: describes the basics of using
105: .I vi.
106: Some topics of special interest are presented in section 6, and
107: some nitty-gritty details of how the editor functions are saved for section
108: 7 to avoid cluttering the presentation here.
109: .PP
110: There is also a short appendix here, which gives for each character the
111: special meanings which this character has in \fIvi\fR. Attached to
112: this document should be a quick reference card.
113: This card summarizes the commands of
114: .I vi
115: in a very compact format. You should have the card handy while you are
116: learning
117: .I vi.
118: .NH 2
119: Specifying terminal type
120: .PP
121: Before you can start
122: .I vi
123: you must tell the system what kind of terminal you are using.
124: Here is a (necessarily incomplete) list of terminal type codes.
125: If your terminal does not appear here, you should consult with one of
126: the staff members on your system to find out the code for your terminal.
127: If your terminal does not have a code, one can be assigned and a description
128: for the terminal can be created.
129: .LP
130: .TS
131: center;
132: ab ab ab
133: a a a.
134: Code Full name Type
135: _
136: 2621 Hewlett-Packard 2621A/P Intelligent
137: 2645 Hewlett-Packard 264x Intelligent
138: act4 Microterm ACT-IV Dumb
139: act5 Microterm ACT-V Dumb
140: adm3a Lear Siegler ADM-3a Dumb
141: adm31 Lear Siegler ADM-31 Intelligent
142: c100 Human Design Concept 100 Intelligent
143: dm1520 Datamedia 1520 Dumb
144: dm2500 Datamedia 2500 Intelligent
145: dm3025 Datamedia 3025 Intelligent
146: fox Perkin-Elmer Fox Dumb
147: h1500 Hazeltine 1500 Intelligent
148: h19 Heathkit h19 Intelligent
149: i100 Infoton 100 Intelligent
150: mime Imitating a smart act4 Intelligent
151: t1061 Teleray 1061 Intelligent
152: vt52 Dec VT-52 Dumb
153: .TE
154: .PP
155: Suppose for example that you have a Hewlett-Packard HP2621A
156: terminal. The code used by the system for this terminal is `2621'.
157: In this case you can use one of the following commands to tell the system
158: the type of your terminal:
159: .DS
160: % \fBsetenv TERM\fP 2621
161: .DE
162: This command works with the
163: .I csh
164: shell.
165: If you are using the standard Bourne shell
166: .I sh
167: then you should give the commands
168: .DS
169: $ \fBTERM=\fP2621
170: $ \fBexport TERM\fP
171: .DE
172: .PP
173: If you want to arrange to have your terminal type set up automatically
174: when you log in, you can use the
175: .I tset
176: program.
177: If you dial in on a
178: .I mime ,
179: but often use hardwired ports, a typical line for your
180: .I .login
181: file (if you use csh) would be
182: .DS
183: \fBsetenv TERM \(gatset\fP \- \-d mime\(ga
184: .DE
185: or for your
186: .I .profile
187: file (if you use sh)
188: .DS
189: \fBTERM=\(gatse\fPt \- \-d mime\(ga
190: .DE
191: .I Tset
192: knows which terminals are hardwired to each port
193: and needs only to be told that when you dial in you
194: are probably on a
195: .I mime .
196: .I Tset
197: is usually used to change the erase and kill characters, too.
198: .NH 2
199: Editing a file
200: .PP
201: After telling the system which kind of terminal you have, you should
202: make a copy of a file you are familiar with, and run
203: .I vi
204: on this file, giving the command
205: .DS
206: % \fBvi\fR \fIname\fR
207: .DE
208: replacing \fIname\fR with the name of the copy file you just created.
209: The screen should clear and the text of your file should appear on the
210: screen. If something else happens refer to the footnote.\*(dd
211: .FS
212: \*(dd If you gave the system an incorrect terminal type code then the
213: editor may have just made a mess out of your screen. This happens when
214: it sends control codes for one kind of terminal to some other
215: kind of terminal. In this case hit
216: the keys \fB:q\fR (colon and the q key) and then hit the \s-2RETURN\s0 key.
217: This should get you back to the command level interpreter.
218: Figure out what you did wrong (ask someone else if necessary) and try again.
219: Another thing which can go wrong is that you typed the wrong file name and
220: the editor just printed an error diagnostic. In this case you should
221: follow the above procedure for getting out of the editor, and try again
222: this time spelling the file name correctly.
223: If the editor doesn't seem to respond to the commands which you type
224: here, try sending an interrupt to it by hitting the \s-2DEL\s0 or \s-2RUB\s0
225: key on your terminal, and then hitting the \fB:q\fR command again followed
226: by a carriage return.
227: .sp
228: .FE
229: .NH 2
230: The editor's copy: the buffer
231: .PP
232: The editor does not directly modify the file which you are editing.
233: Rather, the editor makes a copy of this file, in a place called the
234: .I buffer,
235: and remembers the file's
236: name. You do not affect the contents of the file unless and until you
237: write the changes you make back into the original file.
238: .NH 2
239: Notational conventions
240: .PP
241: In our examples, input which must be typed as is will be presented in
242: \fBbold face\fR. Text which should be replaced with appropriate input
243: will be given in \fIitalics\fR. We will represent special characters
244: in \s-2SMALL CAPITALS\s0.
245: .NH 2
246: Arrow keys
247: .PP
248: The editor command set is independent of the terminal
249: you are using. On most terminals with cursor positioning keys, these keys
250: will also work within the editor.
251: If you don't have cursor positioning keys, or even if you do, you can use
252: the \fBh j k\fR and \fBl\fR keys as cursor positioning
253: keys (these are labelled with arrows on an
254: .I adm3a).*
255: .PP
256: (Particular note for the HP2621: on this terminal the function keys
257: must be \fIshifted\fR (ick) to send to the machine, otherwise they
258: only act locally. Unshifted use will leave the cursor positioned
259: incorrectly.)
260: .FS
261: * As we will see later,
262: .I h
263: moves back to the left (like control-h which is a backspace),
264: .I j
265: moves down (in the same column),
266: .I k
267: moves up (in the same column),
268: and
269: .I l
270: moves to the right.
271: .FE
272: .NH 2
273: Special characters: \s-2ESC\s0, \s-2CR\s0 and \s-2DEL\s0
274: .PP
275: Several of these special characters are very important, so be sure to
276: find them right now. Look on your keyboard for a key labelled \s-2ESC\s0
277: or \s-2ALT\s0. It should be near the upper left corner of your terminal.
278: Try hitting this key a few times. The editor will ring the bell
279: to indicate that it is in a quiescent state.\*(dd
280: .FS
281: \*(dd On smart terminals where it is possible, the editor will quietly
282: flash the screen rather than ringing the bell.
283: .FE
284: Partially formed commands are cancelled by \s-2ESC\s0, and when you insert
285: text in the file you end the text insertion
286: with \s-2ESC\s0. This key is a fairly
287: harmless one to hit, so you can just hit it if you don't know
288: what is going on until the editor rings the bell.
289: .PP
290: The \s-2CR\s0 or \s-2RETURN\s0 key is important because it is used
291: to terminate certain commands.
292: It is usually at the right side of the keyboard,
293: and is the same command used at the end of each shell command.
294: .PP
295: Another very useful key is the \s-2DEL\s0 or \s-2RUB\s0 key, which generates
296: an interrupt, telling the editor to stop what it is doing.
297: It is a forceful way of making the editor listen
298: to you, or to return it to the quiescent state if you don't know or don't
299: like what is going on. Try hitting the `/' key on your terminal. This
300: key is used when you want to specify a string to be searched for. The
301: cursor should now be positioned at the bottom line of the terminal after
302: a `/' printed as a prompt. You can get the cursor back to the current
303: position by hitting the \s-2DEL\s0 or \s-2RUB\s0 key; try this now.*
304: .FS
305: * Backspacing over the `/' will also cancel the search.
306: .FE
307: From now on we will simply refer to hitting the \s-2DEL\s0 or \s-2RUB\s0
308: key as ``sending an interrupt.''**
309: .FS
310: ** On some systems, this interruptibility comes at a price: you cannot type
311: ahead when the editor is computing with the cursor on the bottom line.
312: .FE
313: .PP
314: The editor often echoes your commands on the last line of the terminal.
315: If the cursor is on the first position of this last line, then the editor
316: is performing a computation, such as computing a new position in the
317: file after a search or running a command to reformat part of the buffer.
318: When this is happening you can stop the editor by
319: sending an interrupt.
320: .NH 2
321: Getting out of the editor
322: .PP
323: After you have worked with this introduction for a while, and you wish
324: to do something else, you can give the command \fBZZ\fP
325: to the editor.
326: This will write the contents of the editor's buffer back into
327: the file you are editing, if you made any changes, and then quit from
328: the editor. You can also end an editor
329: session by giving the command \fB:q!\fR\s-2CR\s0;\*(dg
330: .FS
331: \*(dg All commands which read from the last display line can also be
332: terminated with a \s-2ESC\s0 as well as an \s-2CR\s0.
333: .FE
334: this is a dangerous but occasionally essential
335: command which ends the editor session and discards all your changes.
336: You need to know about this command in case you change the editor's
337: copy of a file you wish only to look at. Be very careful
338: not to give this command when you really want to save
339: the changes you have made.
340: .NH 1
341: Moving around in the file
342: .NH 2
343: Scrolling and paging
344: .PP
345: The editor has a number of commands for moving around in the file.
346: The most useful of these is generated by hitting the control and D keys
347: at the same time, a control-D or `^D'. We will use this two character
348: notation for referring to these control keys from now on. You may have
349: a key labelled `^' on your terminal. This key will be represented as `\(ua'
350: in this document; `^' is exclusively used as part of the `^x' notation
351: for control characters.\*(dd
352: .FS
353: \*(dd If you don't have a `^' key on your terminal
354: then there is probably a key labelled `\(ua'; in any case these characters
355: are one and the same.
356: .FE
357: .PP
358: As you know now if you tried hitting \fB^D\fR, this command scrolls down in
359: the file. The \fBD\fR thus stands for down. Many editor commands are mnemonic
360: and this makes them much easier to remember. For instance the command
361: to scroll up is \fB^U\fR. Many dumb terminals can't scroll up at all, in which
362: case hitting \fB^U\fR clears the screen and refreshes it
363: with a line which is farther back in the file at the top.
364: .PP
365: If you want to see more of the file below where you are, you can
366: hit \fB^E\fR to expose one more line at the bottom of the screen,
367: leaving the cursor where it is.
368: The command \fB^Y\fR (which is hopelessly non-mnemonic, but next to \fB^U\fR
369: on the keyboard) exposes one more line at the top of the screen.
370: .PP
371: There are other ways to move around in the file; the keys \fB^F\fR and \fB^B\fR
372: move forward and backward a page,
373: keeping a couple of lines of continuity between screens
374: so that it is possible to read through a file using these rather than
375: \fB^D\fR and \fB^U\fR if you wish.
376: .PP
377: Notice the difference between scrolling and paging. If you are trying
378: to read the text in a file, hitting \fB^F\fR to move forward a page
379: will leave you only a little context to look back at. Scrolling on the
380: other hand leaves more context, and happens more smoothly. You can continue
381: to read the text as scrolling is taking place.
382: .NH 2
383: Searching, goto, and previous context
384: .PP
385: Another way to position yourself in the file is by giving the editor a string
386: to search for. Type the character \fB/\fR followed by a string of characters
387: terminated by \s-2CR\s0. The editor will position the cursor
388: at the next occurrence of this string.
389: Try hitting \fBn\fR to then go to the next occurrence of this string.
390: The character \fB?\fR will search backwards from where you are, and is
391: otherwise like \fB/\fR.\*(dg
392: .FS
393: \*(dg These searches will normally wrap around the end of the file, and thus
394: find the string even if it is not on a line in the direction you search
395: provided it is anywhere else in the file. You can disable this wraparound
396: in scans by giving the command \fB:se nowrapscan\fR\s-2CR\s0,
397: or more briefly \fB:se nows\fR\s-2CR\s0.
398: .FE
399: .PP
400: If the search string you give the editor is not present in the
401: file the editor will print
402: a diagnostic on the last line of the screen, and the cursor will be returned
403: to its initial position.
404: .PP
405: If you wish the search to match only at the beginning of a line, begin
406: the search string with an \fB\(ua\fR. To match only at the end of
407: a line, end the search string with a \fB$\fR.
408: Thus \fB/\(uasearch\fR\s-2CR\s0 will search for the word `search' at
409: the beginning of a line, and \fB/last$\fR\s-2CR\s0 searches for the
410: word `last' at the end of a line.*
411: .FS
412: *Actually, the string you give to search for here can be a
413: .I "regular expression"
414: in the sense of the editors
415: .I ex (1)
416: and
417: .I ed (1).
418: If you don't wish to learn about this yet, you can disable this more
419: general facility by doing
420: \fB:se\ nomagic\fR\s-2CR\s0;
421: by putting this command in
422: EXINIT
423: in your environment, you can have this always be in effect (more
424: about
425: .I EXINIT
426: later.)
427: .FE
428: .PP
429: The command \fBG\fR, when preceded by a number will position the cursor
430: at that line in the file.
431: Thus \fB1G\fR will move the cursor to
432: the first line of the file. If you give \fBG\fR no count, then it moves
433: to the end of the file.
434: .PP
435: If you are near the end of the file, and the last line is not at the bottom
436: of the screen, the editor will place only the character `~' on each remaining
437: line. This indicates that the last line in the file is on the screen;
438: that is, the `~' lines are past the end of the file.
439: .PP
440: You can find out the state of the file you are editing by typing a \fB^G\fR.
441: The editor will show you the name of the file you are editing, the number
442: of the current line, the number of lines in the buffer, and the percentage
443: of the way through the buffer which you are.
444: Try doing this now, and remember the number of the line you are on.
445: Give a \fBG\fR command to get to the end and then another \fBG\fR command
446: to get back where you were.
447: .PP
448: You can also get back to a previous position by using the command
449: \fB\(ga\(ga\fR (two back quotes).
450: This is often more convenient than \fBG\fR because it requires no advance
451: preparation.
452: Try giving a \fBG\fR or a search with \fB/\fR or \fB?\fR and then a
453: \fB\(ga\(ga\fR to get back to where you were. If you accidentally hit
454: \fBn\fR or any command which moves you far away from a context of interest, you
455: can quickly get back by hitting \fB\(ga\(ga\fR.
456: .NH 2
457: Moving around on the screen
458: .PP
459: Now try just moving the cursor around on the screen.
460: If your terminal has arrow keys (4 or 5 keys with arrows
461: going in each direction) try them and convince yourself
462: that they work.
463: If you don't have working arrow keys, you can always use
464: .B h ,
465: .B j ,
466: .B k ,
467: and
468: .B l .
469: Experienced users of
470: .I vi
471: prefer these keys to arrow keys,
472: because they are usually right underneath their fingers.
473: .PP
474: Hit the \fB+\fR key. Each time you do, notice that the cursor
475: advances to the next line in the file, at the first non-white position
476: on the line. The \fB\-\fR key is like \fB+\fR but goes the other way.
477: .PP
478: These are very common keys for moving up and down lines in the file.
479: Notice that if you go off the bottom or top with these keys then the
480: screen will scroll down (and up if possible) to bring a line at a time
481: into view. The \s-2RETURN\s0 key has the same effect as the \fB+\fR
482: key.
483: .PP
484: .I Vi
485: also has commands to take you to the top, middle and bottom of the screen.
486: \fBH\fR will take you to the top (home) line on the screen.
487: Try preceding it with a
488: number as in \fB3H\fR.
489: This will take you to the third line on the screen.
490: Many
491: .I vi
492: commands take preceding numbers and do interesting things with them.
493: Try \fBM\fR,
494: which takes you to the middle line on the screen,
495: and \fBL\fR,
496: which takes you to the last line on the screen.
497: \fBL\fR also takes counts, thus
498: \fB5L\fR will take you to the fifth line from the bottom.
499: .NH 2
500: Moving within a line
501: .PP
502: Now try picking a word on some line on the screen, not the
503: first word on the line.
504: move the cursor using \s-2RETURN\s0 and \fB\-\fR to be on the line where
505: the word is.
506: Try hitting the \fBw\fR key. This will advance the cursor to the
507: next word on the line.
508: Try hitting the \fBb\fR key to back up words
509: in the line.
510: Also try the \fBe\fR key which advances you to the end of the current
511: word rather than to the beginning of the next word.
512: Also try \s-2SPACE\s0 (the space bar) which moves right one character
513: and the \s-2BS\s0 (backspace or \fB^H\fR) key which moves left one character.
514: The key \fBh\fR works as \fB^H\fR does and is useful if you don't have
515: a \s-2BS\s0 key.
516: (Also, as noted just above, \fBl\fR will move to the right.)
517: .PP
518: If the line had punctuation in it you may have noticed that
519: that the \fBw\fR and \fBb\fR
520: keys stopped at each group of punctuation. You can also go back and
521: forwards words without stopping at punctuation by using \fBW\fR and \fBB\fR
522: rather than the lower case equivalents. Think of these as bigger words.
523: Try these on a few lines with punctuation to see how they differ from
524: the lower case \fBw\fR and \fBb\fR.
525: .PP
526: The word keys wrap around the end of line,
527: rather than stopping at the end. Try moving to a word on a line below
528: where you are by repeatedly hitting \fBw\fR.
529: .NH 2
530: Summary
531: .IP
532: .TS
533: lw(.50i)b a.
534: \fR\s-2SPACE\s0\fP advance the cursor one position
535: ^B backwards to previous page
536: ^D scrolls down in the file
537: ^E exposes another line at the bottom
538: ^F forward to next page
539: ^G tell what is going on
540: ^H backspace the cursor
541: ^N next line, same column
542: ^P previous line, same column
543: ^U scrolls up in the file
544: ^Y exposes another line at the top
545: + next line, at the beginning
546: \- previous line, at the beginning
547: / scan for a following string forwards
548: ? scan backwards
549: B back a word, ignoring punctuation
550: G go to specified line, last default
551: H home screen line
552: M middle screen line
553: L last screen line
554: W forward a word, ignoring punctuation
555: b back a word
556: e end of current word
557: n scan for next instance of \fB/\fR or \fB?\fR pattern
558: w word after this word
559: .TE
560: .NH 2
561: View
562: .PP
563: If you want to use the editor to look at a file,
564: rather than to make changes,
565: invoke it as
566: .I view
567: instead of
568: .I vi .
569: This will set the
570: .I readonly
571: option which will prevent you from
572: accidently overwriting the file.
573: .NH 1
574: Making simple changes
575: .NH 2
576: Inserting
577: .PP
578: One of the most useful commands is the
579: \fBi\fR (insert) command.
580: After you type \fBi\fR, everything you type until you hit \s-2ESC\s0
581: is inserted into the file.
582: Try this now; position yourself to some word in the file and try inserting
583: text before this word.
584: If you are on an dumb terminal it will seem, for a minute,
585: that some of the characters in your line have been overwritten, but they will
586: reappear when you hit \s-2ESC\s0.
587: .PP
588: Now try finding a word which can, but does not, end in an `s'.
589: Position yourself at this word and type \fBe\fR (move to end of word), then
590: \fBa\fR for append and then `s\s-2ESC\s0' to terminate the textual insert.
591: This sequence of commands can be used to easily pluralize a word.
592: .PP
593: Try inserting and appending a few times to make sure you understand how
594: this works; \fBi\fR placing text to the left of the cursor, \fBa\fR to
595: the right.
596: .PP
597: It is often the case that you want to add new lines to the file you are
598: editing, before or after some specific line in the file. Find a line
599: where this makes sense and then give the command \fBo\fR to create a
600: new line after the line you are on, or the command \fBO\fR to create
601: a new line before the line you are on. After you create a new line in
602: this way, text you type up to an \s-2ESC\s0 is inserted on the new line.
603: .PP
604: Many related editor commands
605: are invoked by the same letter key and differ only in that one is given
606: by a lower
607: case key and the other is given by
608: an upper case key. In these cases, the
609: upper case key often differs from the lower case key in its sense of
610: direction, with
611: the upper case key working backward and/or up, while the lower case
612: key moves forward and/or down.
613: .PP
614: Whenever you are typing in text, you can give many lines of input or
615: just a few characters.
616: To type in more than one line of text,
617: hit a \s-2RETURN\s0 at the middle of your input. A new line will be created
618: for text, and you can continue to type. If you are on a slow
619: and dumb terminal the editor may choose to wait to redraw the
620: tail of the screen, and will let you type over the existing screen lines.
621: This avoids the lengthy delay which would occur if the editor attempted
622: to keep the tail of the screen always up to date. The tail of the screen will
623: be fixed up, and the missing lines will reappear, when you hit \s-2ESC\s0.
624: .PP
625: While you are inserting new text, you can use the characters you normally use
626: at the system command level (usually \fB^H\fR or \fB#\fR) to backspace
627: over the last
628: character which you typed, and the character which you use to kill input lines
629: (usually \fB@\fR, \fB^X\fR, or \fB^U\fR)
630: to erase the input you have typed on the current line.\*(dg
631: .FS
632: \*(dg In fact, the character \fB^H\fR (backspace) always works to erase the
633: last input character here, regardless of what your erase character is.
634: .FE
635: The character \fB^W\fR
636: will erase a whole word and leave you after the space after the previous
637: word; it is useful for quickly backing up in an insert.
638: .PP
639: Notice that when you backspace during an insertion the characters you
640: backspace over are not erased; the cursor moves backwards, and the characters
641: remain on the display. This is often useful if you are planning to type
642: in something similar. In any case the characters disappear when when
643: you hit \s-2ESC\s0; if you want to get rid of them immediately, hit an
644: \s-2ESC\s0 and then \fBa\fR again.
645: .PP
646: Notice also that you can't erase characters which you didn't insert, and that
647: you can't backspace around the end of a line. If you need to back up
648: to the previous line to make a correction, just hit \s-2ESC\s0 and move
649: the cursor back to the previous line. After making the correction you
650: can return to where you were and use the insert or append command again.
651: .NH 2
652: Making small corrections
653: .PP
654: You can make small corrections in existing text quite easily.
655: Find a single character which is wrong or just pick any character.
656: Use the arrow keys to find the character, or
657: get near the character with the word motion keys and then either
658: backspace (hit the \s-2BS\s0 key or \fB^H\fR or even just \fBh\fR) or
659: \s-2SPACE\s0 (using the space bar)
660: until the cursor is on the character which is wrong.
661: If the character is not needed then hit the \fBx\fP key; this deletes
662: the character from the file. It is analogous to the way you \fBx\fP
663: out characters when you make mistakes on a typewriter (except it's not
664: as messy).
665: .PP
666: If the character
667: is incorrect, you can replace it with the correct character by giving
668: the command \fBr\fR\fIc\fR,
669: where \fIc\fR is replaced by the correct character.
670: Finally if the character which is incorrect should be replaced
671: by more than one character, give the command \fBs\fR which substitutes
672: a string of characters, ending with \s-2ESC\s0, for it.
673: If there are a small number of characters
674: which are wrong you can precede \fBs\fR with a count of the number of
675: characters to be replaced. Counts are also useful with \fBx\fR to specify
676: the number of characters to be deleted.
677: .NH 2
678: More corrections: operators
679: .PP
680: You already know almost enough to make changes at a higher level.
681: All you need to know now is that the
682: .B d
683: key acts as a delete operator. Try the command
684: .B dw
685: to delete a word.
686: Try hitting \fB.\fR a few times. Notice that this repeats the effect
687: of the \fBdw\fR. The command \fB.\fR repeats the last command which
688: made a change. You can remember it by analogy with an ellipsis `\fB...\fR'.
689: .PP
690: Now try
691: \fBdb\fR.
692: This deletes a word backwards, namely the preceding word.
693: Try
694: \fBd\fR\s-2SPACE\s0. This deletes a single character, and is equivalent
695: to the \fBx\fR command.
696: .PP
697: Another very useful operator is
698: .B c
699: or change. The command
700: .B cw
701: thus changes the text of a single word.
702: You follow it by the replacement text ending with an \s-2ESC\s0.
703: Find a word which you can change to another, and try this
704: now.
705: Notice that the end of the text to be changed was marked with the character
706: `$' so that you can see this as you are typing in the new material.
707: .NH 2
708: Operating on lines
709: .PP
710: It is often the case that you want to operate on lines.
711: Find a line which you want to delete, and type
712: \fBdd\fR,
713: the
714: .B d
715: operator twice. This will delete the line.
716: If you are on a dumb terminal, the editor may just erase the line on
717: the screen, replacing it with a line with only an @ on it. This line
718: does not correspond to any line in your file, but only acts as a place
719: holder. It helps to avoid a lengthy redraw of the rest of the screen
720: which would be necessary to close up the hole created by the deletion
721: on a terminal without a delete line capability.
722: .PP
723: Try repeating the
724: .B c
725: operator twice; this will change a whole line, erasing its previous contents and
726: replacing them with text you type up to an \s-2ESC\s0.\*(dg
727: .FS
728: \*(dg The command \fBS\fR is a convenient synonym for for \fBcc\fR, by
729: analogy with \fBs\fR. Think of \fBS\fR as a substitute on lines, while
730: \fBs\fR is a substitute on characters.
731: .FE
732: .PP
733: You can delete or change more than one line by preceding the
734: .B dd
735: or
736: .B cc
737: with a count, i.e. \fB5dd\fR deletes 5 lines.
738: You can also give a command like \fBdL\fR to delete all the lines up to
739: and including
740: the last line on the screen, or \fBd3L\fR to delete through the third from
741: the bottom line. Try some commands like this now.*
742: .FS
743: * One subtle point here involves using the \fB/\fR search after a \fBd\fR.
744: This will normally delete characters from the current position to the
745: point of the match. If what is desired is to delete whole lines
746: including the two points, give the pattern as \fB/pat/+0\fR, a line address.
747: .FE
748: Notice that the editor lets you know when you change a large number of
749: lines so that you can see the extent of the change.
750: The editor will also always tell you when a change you make affects text which
751: you cannot see.
752: .NH 2
753: Undoing
754: .PP
755: Now suppose that the last change which you made was incorrect;
756: you could use the insert, delete and append commands to put the correct
757: material back. However, since it is often the case that we regret a
758: change or make a change incorrectly, the editor provides a
759: .B u
760: (undo) command to reverse the last change which you made.
761: Try this a few times, and give it twice in a row to notice that an
762: .B u
763: also undoes a
764: .B u.
765: .PP
766: The undo command lets you reverse only a single change. After you make
767: a number of changes to a line, you may decide that you would rather have
768: the original state of the line back. The
769: .B U
770: command restores the current line to the state before you started changing
771: it.
772: .PP
773: You can recover text which you delete, even if
774: undo will not bring it back; see the section on recovering lost text
775: below.
776: .NH 2
777: Summary
778: .IP
779: .TS
780: lw(.50i)b a.
781: \fR\s-2SPACE\s0\fP advance the cursor one position
782: ^H backspace the cursor
783: ^W erase a word during an insert
784: \fRerase\fP your erase (usually ^H or #), erases a character during an insert
785: \fRkill\fP your kill (usually @, ^X, or ^U), kills the insert on this line
786: \&\fB.\fP repeats the changing command
787: O opens and inputs new lines, above the current
788: U undoes the changes you made to the current line
789: a appends text after the cursor
790: c changes the object you specify to the following text
791: d deletes the object you specify
792: i inserts text before the cursor
793: o opens and inputs new lines, below the current
794: u undoes the last change
795: .TE
796: .NH 1
797: Moving about; rearranging and duplicating text
798: .NH 2
799: Low level character motions
800: .PP
801: Now move the cursor to a line where there is a punctuation or a bracketing
802: character such as a parenthesis or a comma or period. Try the command
803: \fBf\fR\fIx\fR where \fIx\fR is this character. This command finds
804: the next \fIx\fR character to the right of the cursor in the current
805: line. Try then hitting a \fB;\fR, which finds the next instance of the
806: same character. By using the \fBf\fR command and then a sequence of
807: \fB;\fR's you can often
808: get to a particular place in a line much faster than with a sequence
809: of word motions or \s-2SPACE\s0s.
810: There is also a \fBF\fR command, which is like \fBf\fR, but searches
811: backward. The \fB;\fR command repeats \fBF\fR also.
812: .PP
813: When you are operating on the text in a line it is often desirable to
814: deal with the characters up to, but not including, the first instance of
815: a character. Try \fBdf\fR\fIx\fR for some \fIx\fR now and
816: notice that the \fIx\fR character is deleted. Undo this with \fBu\fR
817: and then try \fBdt\fR\fIx\fR; the \fBt\fR here stands for to, i.e.
818: delete up to the next \fIx\fR, but not the \fIx\fR. The command \fBT\fR
819: is the reverse of \fBt\fR.
820: .PP
821: When working with the text of a single line, an \fB\(ua\fR moves the
822: cursor to the first non-white position on the line, and a
823: \fB$\fR moves it to the end of the line. Thus \fB$a\fR will append new
824: text at the end of the current line.
825: .PP
826: Your file may have tab (\fB^I\fR) characters in it. These
827: characters are represented as a number of spaces expanding to a tab stop,
828: where tab stops are every 8 positions.*
829: .FS
830: * This is settable by a command of the form \fB:se ts=\fR\fIx\fR\s-2CR\s0,
831: where \fIx\fR is 4 to set tabstops every four columns. This has
832: effect on the screen representation within the editor.
833: .FE
834: When the cursor is at a tab, it sits on the last of the several spaces
835: which represent that tab. Try moving the cursor back and forth over
836: tabs so you understand how this works.
837: .PP
838: On rare occasions, your file may have nonprinting characters in it.
839: These characters are displayed in the same way they are represented in
840: this document, that is with a two character code, the first character
841: of which is `^'. On the screen non-printing characters resemble a `^'
842: character adjacent to another, but spacing or backspacing over the character
843: will reveal that the two characters are, like the spaces representing
844: a tab character, a single character.
845: .PP
846: The editor sometimes discards control characters,
847: depending on the character and the setting of the
848: .I beautify
849: option,
850: if you attempt to insert them in your file.
851: You can get a control character in the file by beginning
852: an insert and then typing a \fB^V\fR before the control
853: character. The
854: \fB^V\fR quotes the following character, causing it to be
855: inserted directly into the file.
856: .PP
857: .NH 2
858: Higher level text objects
859: .PP
860: In working with a document it is often advantageous to work in terms
861: of sentences, paragraphs, and sections. The operations \fB(\fR and \fB)\fR
862: move to the beginning of the previous and next sentences respectively.
863: Thus the command \fBd)\fR will delete the rest of the current sentence;
864: likewise \fBd(\fR will delete the previous sentence if you are at the
865: beginning of the current sentence, or the current sentence up to where
866: you are if you are not at the beginning of the current sentence.
867: .PP
868: A sentence is defined to end at a `.', `!' or `?' which is followed by
869: either the end of a line, or by two spaces. Any number of closing `)',
870: `]', `"' and `\(aa' characters may appear after the `.', `!' or `?' before
871: the spaces or end of line.
872: .PP
873: The operations \fB{\fR and \fB}\fR move over paragraphs and the operations
874: \fB[[\fR and \fB]]\fR move over sections.\*(dg
875: .FS
876: \*(dg The \fB[[\fR and \fB]]\fR operations
877: require the operation character to be doubled because they can move the
878: cursor far from where it currently is. While it is easy to get back
879: with the command \fB\(ga\(ga\fP,
880: these commands would still be frustrating
881: if they were easy to hit accidentally.
882: .FE
883: .PP
884: A paragraph begins after each empty line, and also
885: at each of a set of paragraph macros, specified by the pairs of characters
886: in the definition of the string valued option \fIparagraphs\fR.
887: The default setting for this option defines the paragraph macros of the
888: \fI\-ms\fR and \fI\-mm\fR macro packages, i.e. the `.IP', `.LP', `.PP'
889: and `.QP', `.P' and `.LI' macros.\*(dd
890: .FS
891: \*(dd You can easily change or extend this set of macros by assigning a
892: different string to the \fIparagraphs\fR option in your EXINIT.
893: See section 6.2 for details.
894: The `.bp' directive is also considered to start a paragraph.
895: .FE
896: Each paragraph boundary is also a sentence boundary. The sentence
897: and paragraph commands can
898: be given counts to operate over groups of sentences and paragraphs.
899: .PP
900: Sections in the editor begin after each macro in the \fIsections\fR option,
901: normally `.NH', `.SH', `.H' and `.HU', and each line with a formfeed \fB^L\fR
902: in the first column.
903: Section boundaries are always line and paragraph boundaries also.
904: .PP
905: Try experimenting with the sentence and paragraph commands until you are
906: sure how they work. If you have a large document, try looking through
907: it using the section commands.
908: The section commands interpret a preceding count as a different window size in
909: which to redraw the screen at the new location, and this window size
910: is the base size for newly drawn windows until another size is specified.
911: This is very useful
912: if you are on a slow terminal and are looking for a particular section.
913: You can give the first section command a small count to then see each successive
914: section heading in a small window.
915: .NH 2
916: Rearranging and duplicating text
917: .PP
918: The editor has a single unnamed buffer where the last deleted or
919: changed away text is saved, and a set of named buffers \fBa\fR\-\fBz\fR
920: which you can use to save copies of text and to move text around in
921: your file and between files.
922: .PP
923: The operator
924: .B y
925: yanks a copy of the object which follows into the unnamed buffer.
926: If preceded by a buffer name, \fB"\fR\fIx\fR\|\fBy\fR, where
927: \fIx\fR here is replaced by a letter \fBa\-z\fR, it places the text in the named
928: buffer. The text can then be put back in the file with the commands
929: .B p
930: and
931: .B P;
932: \fBp\fR puts the text after or below the cursor, while \fBP\fR puts the text
933: before or above the cursor.
934: .PP
935: If the text which you
936: yank forms a part of a line, or is an object such as a sentence which
937: partially spans more than one line, then when you put the text back,
938: it will be placed after the cursor (or before if you
939: use \fBP\fR). If the yanked text forms whole lines, they will be put
940: back as whole lines, without changing the current line. In this case,
941: the put acts much like a \fBo\fR or \fBO\fR command.
942: .PP
943: Try the command \fBYP\fR. This makes a copy of the current line and
944: leaves you on this copy, which is placed before the current line.
945: The command \fBY\fR is a convenient abbreviation for \fByy\fR.
946: The command \fBYp\fR will also make a copy of the current line, and place
947: it after the current line. You can give \fBY\fR a count of lines to
948: yank, and thus duplicate several lines; try \fB3YP\fR.
949: .PP
950: To move text within the buffer, you need to delete it in one place, and
951: put it back in another. You can precede a delete operation by the
952: name of a buffer in which the text is to be stored as in \fB"a5dd\fR
953: deleting 5 lines into the named buffer \fIa\fR. You can then move the
954: cursor to the eventual resting place of the these lines and do a \fB"ap\fR
955: or \fB"aP\fR to put them back.
956: In fact, you can switch and edit another file before you put the lines
957: back, by giving a command of the form \fB:e \fR\fIname\fR\s-2CR\s0 where
958: \fIname\fR is the name of the other file you want to edit. You will
959: have to write back the contents of the current editor buffer (or discard
960: them) if you have made changes before the editor will let you switch
961: to the other file.
962: An ordinary delete command saves the text in the unnamed buffer,
963: so that an ordinary put can move it elsewhere.
964: However, the unnamed buffer is lost when you change files,
965: so to move text from one file to another you should use an unnamed buffer.
966: .NH 2
967: Summary.
968: .IP
969: .TS
970: lw(.50i)b a.
971: \(ua first non-white on line
972: $ end of line
973: ) forward sentence
974: } forward paragraph
975: ]] forward section
976: ( backward sentence
977: { backward paragraph
978: [[ backward section
979: f\fIx\fR find \fIx\fR forward in line
980: p put text back, after cursor or below current line
981: y yank operator, for copies and moves
982: t\fIx\fR up to \fIx\fR forward, for operators
983: F\fIx\fR f backward in line
984: P put text back, before cursor or above current line
985: T\fIx\fR t backward in line
986: .TE
987: .NH 1
988: High level commands
989: .NH 2
990: Writing, quitting, editing new files
991: .PP
992: So far we have seen how to enter
993: .I vi
994: and to write out our file using either
995: \fBZZ\fR or \fB:w\fR\s-2CR\s0. The first exits from
996: the editor,
997: (writing if changes were made),
998: the second writes and stays in the editor.
999: .PP
1000: If you have changed the editor's copy of the file but do not wish to
1001: save your changes, either because you messed up the file or decided that the
1002: changes are not an improvement to the file, then you can give the command
1003: \fB:q!\fR\s-2CR\s0 to quit from the editor without writing the changes.
1004: You can also reedit the same file (starting over) by giving the command
1005: \fB:e!\fR\s-2CR\s0. These commands should be used only rarely, and with
1006: caution, as it is not possible to recover the changes you have made after
1007: you discard them in this manner.
1008: .PP
1009: You can edit a different file without leaving the editor by giving the
1010: command \fB:e\fR\ \fIname\fR\s-2CR\s0. If you have not written out
1011: your file before you try to do this, then the editor will tell you this,
1012: and delay editing the other file. You can then give the command
1013: \fB:w\fR\s-2CR\s0 to save your work and then the \fB:e\fR\ \fIname\fR\s-2CR\s0
1014: command again, or carefully give the command \fB:e!\fR\ \fIname\fR\s-2CR\s0,
1015: which edits the other file discarding the changes you have made to the
1016: current file.
1017: To have the editor automatically save changes,
1018: include
1019: .I "set autowrite"
1020: in your EXINIT,
1021: and use \fB:n\fP instead of \fB:e\fP.
1022: .NH 2
1023: Escaping to a shell
1024: .PP
1025: You can get to a shell to execute a single command by giving a
1026: .I vi
1027: command of the form \fB:!\fIcmd\fR\s-2CR\s0.
1028: The system will run the single command
1029: .I cmd
1030: and when the command finishes, the editor will ask you to hit a \s-2RETURN\s0
1031: to continue. When you have finished looking at the output on the screen,
1032: you should hit \s-2RETURN\s0 and the editor will clear the screen and
1033: redraw it. You can then continue editing.
1034: You can also give another \fB:\fR command when it asks you for a \s-2RETURN\s0;
1035: in this case the screen will not be redrawn.
1036: .PP
1037: If you wish to execute more than one command in the shell, then you can
1038: give the command \fB:sh\fR\s-2CR\s0.
1039: This will give you a new shell, and when you finish with the shell, ending
1040: it by typing a \fB^D\fR, the editor will clear the screen and continue.
1041: .PP
1042: On systems which support it, \fB^Z\fP will suspend the editor
1043: and return to the (top level) shell.
1044: When the editor is resumed, the screen will be redrawn.
1045: .NH 2
1046: Marking and returning
1047: .PP
1048: The command \fB\(ga\(ga\fR returned to the previous place
1049: after a motion of the cursor by a command such as \fB/\fR, \fB?\fR or
1050: \fBG\fR. You can also mark lines in the file with single letter tags
1051: and return to these marks later by naming the tags. Try marking the
1052: current line with the command \fBm\fR\fIx\fR, where you should pick some
1053: letter for \fIx\fR, say `a'. Then move the cursor to a different line
1054: (any way you like) and hit \fB\(gaa\fR. The cursor will return to the
1055: place which you marked.
1056: Marks last only until you edit another file.
1057: .PP
1058: When using operators such as
1059: .B d
1060: and referring to marked lines, it is often desirable to delete whole lines
1061: rather than deleting to the exact position in the line marked by \fBm\fR.
1062: In this case you can use the form \fB\(aa\fR\fIx\fR rather than
1063: \fB\(ga\fR\fIx\fR. Used without an operator, \fB\(aa\fR\fIx\fR will move to
1064: the first non-white character of the marked line; similarly \fB\(aa\(aa\fR
1065: moves to the first non-white character of the line containing the previous
1066: context mark \fB\(ga\(ga\fR.
1067: .NH 2
1068: Adjusting the screen
1069: .PP
1070: If the screen image is messed up because of a transmission error to your
1071: terminal, or because some program other than the editor wrote output
1072: to your terminal, you can hit a \fB^L\fR, the \s-2ASCII\s0 form-feed
1073: character, to cause the screen to be refreshed.
1074: .PP
1075: On a dumb terminal, if there are @ lines in the middle of the screen
1076: as a result of line deletion, you may get rid of these lines by typing
1077: \fB^R\fR to cause the editor to retype the screen, closing up these holes.
1078: .PP
1079: Finally, if you wish to place a certain line on the screen at the top
1080: middle or bottom of the screen, you can position the cursor to that line,
1081: and then give a \fBz\fR command.
1082: You should follow the \fBz\fR command with a \s-2RETURN\s0 if you want
1083: the line to appear at the top of the window, a \fB.\fR if you want it
1084: at the center, or a \fB\-\fR if you want it at the bottom.
1085: .NH 1
1086: Special topics
1087: .NH 2
1088: Editing on slow terminals
1089: .PP
1090: When you are on a slow terminal, it is important to limit the amount
1091: of output which is generated to your screen so that you will not suffer
1092: long delays, waiting for the screen to be refreshed. We have already
1093: pointed out how the editor optimizes the updating of the screen during
1094: insertions on dumb terminals to limit the delays, and how the editor erases
1095: lines to @ when they are deleted on dumb terminals.
1096: .PP
1097: The use of the slow terminal insertion mode is controlled by the
1098: .I slowopen
1099: option. You can force the editor to use this mode even on faster terminals
1100: by giving the command \fB:se slow\fR\s-2CR\s0. If your system is sluggish
1101: this helps lessen the amount of output coming to your terminal.
1102: You can disable this option by \fB:se noslow\fR\s-2CR\s0.
1103: .PP
1104: The editor can simulate an intelligent terminal on a dumb one. Try
1105: giving the command \fB:se redraw\fR\s-2CR\s0. This simulation generates
1106: a great deal of output and is generally tolerable only on lightly loaded
1107: systems and fast terminals. You can disable this by giving the command
1108: \fB:se noredraw\fR\s-2CR\s0.
1109: .PP
1110: The editor also makes editing more pleasant at low speed by starting
1111: editing in a small window, and letting the window expand as you edit.
1112: This works particularly well on intelligent terminals. The editor can
1113: expand the window easily when you insert in the middle of the screen
1114: on these terminals. If possible, try the editor on an intelligent terminal
1115: to see how this works.
1116: .PP
1117: You can control the size of the window which is redrawn each time the
1118: screen is cleared by giving window sizes as argument to the commands
1119: which cause large screen motions:
1120: .DS
1121: .B ": / ? [[ ]] \(ga \(aa"
1122: .DE
1123: Thus if you are searching for a particular instance of a common string
1124: in a file you can precede the first search command by a small number,
1125: say 3, and the editor will draw three line windows around each instance
1126: of the string which it locates.
1127: .PP
1128: You can easily expand or contract the window, placing the current line
1129: as you choose, by giving a number on a \fBz\fR command, after the \fBz\fR
1130: and before the following \s-2RETURN\s0, \fB.\fR or \fB\-\fR. Thus the
1131: command \fBz5.\fR redraws the screen with the current line in the center
1132: of a five line window.\*(dg
1133: .FS
1134: \*(dg Note that the command \fB5z.\fR has an entirely different effect,
1135: placing line 5 in the center of a new window.
1136: .FE
1137: .PP
1138: If the editor is redrawing or otherwise updating large portions of the
1139: display, you can interrupt this updating by hitting a \s-2DEL\s0 or \s-2RUB\s0
1140: as usual. If you do this you may partially confuse the editor about
1141: what is displayed on the screen. You can still edit the text on
1142: the screen if you wish; clear up the confusion
1143: by hitting a \fB^L\fR; or move or search again, ignoring the
1144: current state of the display.
1145: .PP
1146: See section 7.8 on \fIopen\fR mode for another way to use the
1147: .I vi
1148: command set on slow terminals.
1149: .NH 2
1150: Options, set, and editor startup files
1151: .PP
1152: The editor has a set of options, some of which have been mentioned above.
1153: The most useful options are given in the following table.
1154: .KF
1155: .TS
1156: lb lb lb lb
1157: l l l a.
1158: Name Default Description
1159: _
1160: autoindent noai Supply indentation automatically
1161: autowrite noaw Automatic write before \fB:n\fR, \fB:ta\fR, \fB^\(ua\fR, \fB!\fR
1162: ignorecase noic Ignore case in searching
1163: lisp nolisp \fB( { ) }\fR commands deal with S-expressions
1164: list nolist Tabs print as ^I; end of lines marked with $
1165: magic nomagic The characters . [ and * are special in scans
1166: number nonu Lines are displayed prefixed with line numbers
1167: paragraphs para=IPLPPPQPbpP LI Macro names which start paragraphs
1168: redraw nore Simulate a smart terminal on a dumb one
1169: sections sect=NHSHH HU Macro names which start new sections
1170: shiftwidth sw=8 Shift distance for <, > and input \fB^D\fP and \fB^T\fR
1171: showmatch nosm Show matching \fB(\fP or \fB{\fP as \fB)\fP or \fB}\fR is typed
1172: slowopen slow Postpone display updates during inserts
1173: term dumb The kind of terminal you are using.
1174: .TE
1175: .KE
1176: .PP
1177: The options are of three kinds: numeric options, string options, and
1178: toggle options. You can set numeric and string options by a statement
1179: of the form
1180: .DS
1181: \fBset\fR \fIopt\fR\fB=\fR\fIval\fR
1182: .DE
1183: and toggle options can be set or unset by statements of one of the forms
1184: .DS
1185: \fBset\fR \fIopt\fR
1186: \fBset\fR \fBno\fR\fIopt\fR
1187: .DE
1188: These statements can be placed in your EXINIT in your environment,
1189: or given while you are running
1190: .I vi
1191: by preceding them with a \fB:\fR and following them with a \s-2CR\s0.
1192: .PP
1193: You can get a list of all options which you have changed by the
1194: command \fB:set\fR\s-2CR\s0, or the value of a single option by the
1195: command \fB:set\fR \fIopt\fR\fB?\fR\s-2CR\s0.
1196: A list of all possible options and their values is generated by
1197: \fB:set all\fP\s-2CR\s0.
1198: Set can be abbreviated \fBse\fP.
1199: Multiple options can be placed on one line, e.g.
1200: \fB:se ai aw nu\fP\s-2CR\s0.
1201: .PP
1202: Options set by the \fBset\fP command only last
1203: while you stay in the editor.
1204: It is common to want to have certain options set whenever you
1205: use the editor.
1206: This can be accomplished by creating a list of \fIex\fP commands\*(dg
1207: .FS
1208: \*(dg
1209: All commands which start with
1210: .B :
1211: are \fIex\fP commands.
1212: .FE
1213: which are to be run every time you start up \fIex\fP, \fIedit\fP,
1214: or \fIvi\fP.
1215: A typical list includes a \fBset\fP command, and possibly a few
1216: \fBmap\fP commands.
1217: Since it is advisable to get these commands on one line, they can
1218: be separated with the | character, for example:
1219: .DS
1220: \fBset\fP ai aw terse|\fBmap\fP @ dd|\fBmap\fP # x
1221: .DE
1222: which sets the options \fIautoindent\fP, \fIautowrite\fP, \fIterse\fP,
1223: (the
1224: .B set
1225: command),
1226: makes @ delete a line,
1227: (the first
1228: .B map ),
1229: and makes # delete a character,
1230: (the second
1231: .B map ).
1232: (See section 6.9 for a description of the \fBmap\fP command)
1233: This string should be placed in the variable EXINIT in your environment.
1234: If you use the shell \fIcsh\fP,
1235: put this line in the file
1236: .I .login
1237: in your home directory:
1238: .DS
1239: setenv EXINIT \(aa\fBset\fP ai aw terse|\fBmap\fP @ dd|\fBmap\fP # x\(aa
1240: .DE
1241: If you use the standard shell \fIsh\fP,
1242: put these lines in the file
1243: .I .profile
1244: in your home directory:
1245: .DS
1246: EXINIT=\(aa\fBset\fP ai aw terse|\fBmap\fP @ dd|\fBmap\fP # x\(aa
1247: export EXINIT
1248: .DE
1249: Of course, the particulars of the line would depend on which options
1250: you wanted to set.
1251: .NH 2
1252: Recovering lost lines
1253: .PP
1254: You might have a serious problem if you delete a number of lines and then
1255: regret that they were deleted. Despair not, the editor saves the last
1256: 9 deleted blocks of text in a set of numbered registers 1\-9.
1257: You can get the \fIn\fR'th previous deleted text back in your file by
1258: the command
1259: "\fR\fIn\fR\|\fBp\fR.
1260: The "\fR here says that a buffer name is to follow,
1261: \fIn\fR is the number of the buffer you wish to try
1262: (use the number 1 for now),
1263: and
1264: .B p
1265: is the put command, which puts text in the buffer after the cursor.
1266: If this doesn't bring back the text you wanted, hit
1267: .B u
1268: to undo this and then
1269: \fB\&.\fR
1270: (period)
1271: to repeat the put command.
1272: In general the
1273: \fB\&.\fR
1274: command will repeat the last change you made.
1275: As a special case, when the last command refers to a numbered text buffer,
1276: the \fB.\fR command increments the number of the buffer before repeating
1277: the command. Thus a sequence of the form
1278: .DS
1279: \fB"1pu.u.u.\fR
1280: .DE
1281: will, if repeated long enough, show you all the deleted text which has
1282: been saved for you.
1283: You can omit the
1284: .B u
1285: commands here to gather up all this text in the buffer, or stop after any
1286: \fB\&.\fR command to keep just the then recovered text.
1287: The command
1288: .B P
1289: can also be used rather than
1290: .B p
1291: to put the recovered text before rather than after the cursor.
1292: .NH 2
1293: Recovering lost files
1294: .PP
1295: If the system crashes, you can recover the work you were doing
1296: to within a few changes. You will normally receive mail when you next
1297: login giving you the name of the file which has been saved for you.
1298: You should then change to the directory where you were when the system
1299: crashed and give a command of the form:
1300: .DS
1301: % \fBvi \-r\fR \fIname\fR
1302: .DE
1303: replacing \fIname\fR with the name of the file which you were editing.
1304: This will recover your work to a point near where you left off.\*(dg
1305: .FS
1306: \*(dg In rare cases, some of the lines of the file may be lost. The
1307: editor will give you the numbers of these lines and the text of the lines
1308: will be replaced by the string `LOST'. These lines will almost always
1309: be among the last few which you changed. You can either choose to discard
1310: the changes which you made (if they are easy to remake) or to replace
1311: the few lost lines by hand.
1312: .FE
1313: .PP
1314: You can get a listing of the files which are saved for you by giving
1315: the command:
1316: .DS
1317: % \fBvi \-r\fR
1318: .DE
1319: If there is more than one instance of a particular file saved, the editor
1320: gives you the newest instance each time you recover it. You can thus
1321: get an older saved copy back by first recovering the newer copies.
1322: .PP
1323: For this feature to work,
1324: .I vi
1325: must be correctly installed by a super user on your system,
1326: and the
1327: .I mail
1328: program must exist to receive mail.
1329: The invocation ``\fIvi -r\fP'' will not always list all saved files,
1330: but they can be recovered even if they are not listed.
1331: .NH 2
1332: Continuous text input
1333: .PP
1334: When you are typing in large amounts of text it is convenient to have
1335: lines broken near the right margin automatically. You can cause this
1336: to happen by giving the command
1337: \fB:se wm=10\fR\s-2CR\s0.
1338: This causes all lines to be broken at a space at least 10 columns
1339: from the right hand edge of the screen.
1340: .PP
1341: If the editor breaks an input line and you wish to put it back together
1342: you can tell it to join the lines with \fBJ\fR. You can give \fBJ\fR
1343: a count of the number of lines to be joined as in \fB3J\fR to join 3
1344: lines. The editor supplies white space, if appropriate,
1345: at the juncture of the joined
1346: lines, and leaves the cursor at this white space.
1347: You can kill the white space with \fBx\fR if you don't want it.
1348: .NH 2
1349: Features for editing programs
1350: .PP
1351: The editor has a number of commands for editing programs.
1352: The thing that most distinguishes editing of programs from editing of text
1353: is the desirability of maintaining an indented structure to the body of
1354: the program. The editor has a
1355: .I autoindent
1356: facility for helping you generate correctly indented programs.
1357: .PP
1358: To enable this facility you can give the command \fB:se ai\fR\s-2CR\s0.
1359: Now try opening a new line with \fBo\fR and type some characters on the
1360: line after a few tabs. If you now start another line, notice that the
1361: editor supplies white space at the beginning of the line to line it up
1362: with the previous line. You cannot backspace over this indentation,
1363: but you can use \fB^D\fR key to backtab over the supplied indentation.
1364: .PP
1365: Each time you type \fB^D\fR you back up one position, normally to an
1366: 8 column boundary. This amount is settable; the editor has an option
1367: called
1368: .I shiftwidth
1369: which you can set to change this value.
1370: Try giving the command \fB:se sw=4\fR\s-2CR\s0
1371: and then experimenting with autoindent again.
1372: .PP
1373: For shifting lines in the program left and right, there are operators
1374: .B <
1375: and
1376: .B >.
1377: These shift the lines you specify right or left by one
1378: .I shiftwidth.
1379: Try
1380: .B <<
1381: and
1382: .B >>
1383: which shift one line left or right, and
1384: .B <L
1385: and
1386: .B >L
1387: shifting the rest of the display left and right.
1388: .PP
1389: If you have a complicated expression and wish to see how the parentheses
1390: match, put the cursor at a left or right parenthesis and hit \fB%\fR.
1391: This will show you the matching parenthesis.
1392: This works also for braces { and }, and brackets [ and ].
1393: .PP
1394: If you are editing C programs, you can use the \fB[[\fR and \fB]]\fR keys
1395: to advance or retreat to a line starting with a \fB{\fR, i.e. a function
1396: declaration at a time. When \fB]]\fR is used with an operator it stops
1397: after a line which starts with \fB}\fR; this is sometimes useful with
1398: \fBy]]\fR.
1399: .NH 2
1400: Filtering portions of the buffer
1401: .PP
1402: You can run system commands over portions of the buffer using the operator
1403: \fB!\fR.
1404: You can use this to sort lines in the buffer, or to reformat portions
1405: of the buffer with a pretty-printer.
1406: Try typing in a list of random words, one per line and ending them
1407: with a blank line. Back up to the beginning of the list, and then give
1408: the command \fB!}sort\fR\s-2CR\s0. This says to sort the next paragraph
1409: of material, and the blank line ends a paragraph.
1410: .NH 2
1411: Commands for editing \s-2LISP\s0
1412: .PP
1413: If you are editing a \s-2LISP\s0 program you should set the option
1414: .I lisp
1415: by doing
1416: \fB:se\ lisp\fR\s-2CR\s0.
1417: This changes the \fB(\fR and \fB)\fR commands to move backward and forward
1418: over s-expressions.
1419: The \fB{\fR and \fB}\fR commands are like \fB(\fR and \fB)\fR but don't
1420: stop at atoms. These can be used to skip to the next list, or through
1421: a comment quickly.
1422: .PP
1423: The
1424: .I autoindent
1425: option works differently for \s-2LISP\s0, supplying indent to align at
1426: the first argument to the last open list. If there is no such argument
1427: then the indent is two spaces more than the last level.
1428: .PP
1429: There is another option which is useful for typing in \s-2LISP\s0, the
1430: .I showmatch
1431: option.
1432: Try setting it with
1433: \fB:se sm\fR\s-2CR\s0
1434: and then try typing a `(' some words and then a `)'. Notice that the
1435: cursor shows the position of the `(' which matches the `)' briefly.
1436: This happens only if the matching `(' is on the screen, and the cursor
1437: stays there for at most one second.
1438: .PP
1439: The editor also has an operator to realign existing lines as though they
1440: had been typed in with
1441: .I lisp
1442: and
1443: .I autoindent
1444: set. This is the \fB=\fR operator.
1445: Try the command \fB=%\fR at the beginning of a function. This will realign
1446: all the lines of the function declaration.
1447: .PP
1448: When you are editing \s-2LISP\s0,, the \fB[[\fR and \fR]]\fR advance
1449: and retreat to lines beginning with a \fB(\fR, and are useful for dealing
1450: with entire function definitions.
1451: .NH 2
1452: Macros
1453: .PP
1454: .I Vi
1455: has a parameterless macro facility, which lets you set it up so that
1456: when you hit a single keystroke, the editor will act as though
1457: you had hit some longer sequence of keys. You can set this up if
1458: you find yourself typing the same sequence of commands repeatedly.
1459: .PP
1460: Briefly, there are two flavors of macros:
1461: .IP a)
1462: Ones where you put the macro body in a buffer register, say \fIx\fR.
1463: You can then type \fB@x\fR to invoke the macro. The \fB@\fR may be followed
1464: by another \fB@\fR to repeat the last macro.
1465: .IP b)
1466: You can use the
1467: .I map
1468: command from
1469: .I vi
1470: (typically in your
1471: .I EXINIT )
1472: with a command of the form:
1473: .DS
1474: :map \fIlhs\fR \fIrhs\fR\s-2CR\f0
1475: .DE
1476: mapping
1477: .I lhs
1478: into
1479: .I rhs.
1480: There are restrictions:
1481: .I lhs
1482: should be one keystroke (either 1 character or one function key)
1483: since it must be entered within one second
1484: (unless
1485: .I notimeout
1486: is set, in which case you can type it as slowly as you wish,
1487: and
1488: .I vi
1489: will wait for you to finish it before it echoes anything).
1490: The
1491: .I lhs
1492: can be no longer than 10 characters, the
1493: .I rhs
1494: no longer than 100.
1495: To get a space, tab or newline into
1496: .I lhs
1497: or
1498: .I rhs
1499: you should escape them with a \fB^V\fR.
1500: (It may be necessary to double the \fB^V\fR if the map
1501: command is given inside
1502: .I vi,
1503: rather than in
1504: .I ex.)
1505: Spaces and tabs inside the
1506: .I rhs
1507: need not be escaped.
1508: .PP
1509: Thus to make the \fBq\fR key write and exit the editor, you can give
1510: the command
1511: .DS
1512: :map q :wq\fB^V^V\fP\s-2CR CR\s0
1513: .DE
1514: which means that whenever you type \fBq\fR, it will be as though you
1515: had typed the four characters \fB:wq\fR\s-2CR\s0.
1516: A \fB^V\fR's is needed because without it the \s-2CR\s0 would end the
1517: \fB:\fR command, rather than becoming part of the
1518: .I map
1519: definition.
1520: There are two
1521: .B ^V 's
1522: because from within
1523: .I vi ,
1524: two
1525: .B ^V 's
1526: must be typed to get one.
1527: The first \s-2CR\s0 is part of the
1528: .I rhs ,
1529: the second terminates the : command.
1530: .PP
1531: Macros can be deleted with
1532: .DS
1533: unmap lhs
1534: .DE
1535: .PP
1536: If the
1537: .I lhs
1538: of a macro is ``#0'' through ``#9'', this maps the particular function key
1539: instead of the 2 character ``#'' sequence. So that terminals without
1540: function keys can access such definitions, the form ``#x'' will mean function
1541: key
1542: .I x
1543: on all terminals (and need not be typed within one second.)
1544: The character ``#'' can be changed by using a macro in the usual way:
1545: .DS
1546: :map \fB^V^V^I\fP #
1547: .DE
1548: to use tab, for example. (This won't affect the
1549: .I map
1550: command, which still uses
1551: .B #,
1552: but just the invocation from visual mode.
1553: .PP
1554: The undo command reverses an entire macro call as a unit,
1555: if it made any changes.
1556: .PP
1557: Placing a `!' after the word
1558: .B map
1559: causes the mapping to apply
1560: to input mode, rather than command mode.
1561: Thus, to arrange for \fB^T\fP to be the same as 4 spaces in input mode,
1562: you can type:
1563: .DS
1564: :map \fB^T\fP \fB^V\fP\o'b/'\o'b/'\o'b/'\o'b/'
1565: .DE
1566: where
1567: .B \o'b/'
1568: is a blank.
1569: The \fB^V\fP is necessary to prevent the blanks from being taken as
1570: white space between the
1571: .I lhs
1572: and
1573: .I rhs .
1574: .NH
1575: Word Abbreviations
1576: .PP
1577: A feature similar to macros in input mode is word abbreviation.
1578: This allows you to type a short word and have it expanded into
1579: a longer word or words.
1580: The commands are
1581: .B :abbreviate
1582: and
1583: .B :unabbreviate
1584: (\fB:ab\fP
1585: and
1586: .B :una )
1587: and have the same syntax as
1588: .B :map .
1589: For example:
1590: .DS
1591: :ab eecs Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
1592: .DE
1593: causes the word `eecs' to always be changed into the
1594: phrase `Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences'.
1595: Word abbreviation is different from macros in that
1596: only whole words are affected.
1597: If `eecs' were typed as part of a larger word, it would
1598: be left alone.
1599: Also, the partial word is echoed as it is typed.
1600: There is no need for an abbreviation to be a single keystroke,
1601: as it should be with a macro.
1602: .NH 2
1603: Abbreviations
1604: .PP
1605: The editor has a number of short
1606: commands which abbreviate longer commands which we
1607: have introduced here. You can find these commands easily
1608: on the quick reference card.
1609: They often save a bit of typing and you can learn them as convenient.
1610: .NH 1
1611: Nitty-gritty details
1612: .NH 2
1613: Line representation in the display
1614: .PP
1615: The editor folds long logical lines onto many physical lines in the display.
1616: Commands which advance lines advance logical lines and will skip
1617: over all the segments of a line in one motion. The command \fB|\fR moves
1618: the cursor to a specific column, and may be useful for getting near the
1619: middle of a long line to split it in half. Try \fB80|\fR on a line which
1620: is more than 80 columns long.\*(dg
1621: .FS
1622: \*(dg You can make long lines very easily by using \fBJ\fR to join together
1623: short lines.
1624: .FE
1625: .PP
1626: The editor only puts full lines on the display; if there is not enough
1627: room on the display to fit a logical line, the editor leaves the physical
1628: line empty, placing only an @ on the line as a place holder. When you
1629: delete lines on a dumb terminal, the editor will often just clear the
1630: lines to @ to save time (rather than rewriting the rest of the screen.)
1631: You can always maximize the information on the screen by giving the \fB^R\fR
1632: command.
1633: .PP
1634: If you wish, you can have the editor place line numbers before each line
1635: on the display. Give the command \fB:se nu\fR\s-2CR\s0 to enable
1636: this, and the command \fB:se nonu\fR\s-2CR\s0 to turn it off.
1637: You can have tabs represented as \fB^I\fR and the ends of lines indicated
1638: with `$' by giving the command \fB:se list\fR\s-2CR\s0;
1639: \fB:se nolist\fR\s-2CR\s0 turns this off.
1640: .PP
1641: Finally, lines consisting of only the character `~' are displayed when
1642: the last line in the file is in the middle of the screen. These represent
1643: physical lines which are past the logical end of file.
1644: .NH 2
1645: Counts
1646: .PP
1647: Most
1648: .I vi
1649: commands will use a preceding count to affect their behavior in some way.
1650: The following table gives the common ways in which the counts are used:
1651: .DS
1652: .TS
1653: l lb.
1654: new window size : / ? [[ ]] \` \'
1655: scroll amount ^D ^U
1656: line/column number z G |
1657: repeat effect \fRmost of the rest\fP
1658: .TE
1659: .DE
1660: .PP
1661: The editor maintains a notion of the current default window size.
1662: On terminals which run at speeds greater than 1200 baud
1663: the editor uses the full terminal screen.
1664: On terminals which are slower than 1200 baud
1665: (most dialup lines are in this group)
1666: the editor uses 8 lines as the default window size.
1667: At 1200 baud the default is 16 lines.
1668: .PP
1669: This size is the size used when the editor clears and refills the screen
1670: after a search or other motion moves far from the edge of the current window.
1671: The commands which take a new window size as count all often cause the
1672: screen to be redrawn. If you anticipate this, but do not need as large
1673: a window as you are currently using, you may wish to change the screen
1674: size by specifying the new size before these commands.
1675: In any case, the number of lines used on the screen will expand if you
1676: move off the top with a \fB\-\fR or similar command or off the bottom
1677: with a command such as \s-2RETURN\s0 or \fB^D\fR.
1678: The window will revert to the last specified size the next time it is
1679: cleared and refilled.\*(dg
1680: .FS
1681: \*(dg But not by a \fB^L\fR which just redraws the screen as it is.
1682: .FE
1683: .PP
1684: The scroll commands \fB^D\fR and \fB^U\fR likewise remember the amount
1685: of scroll last specified, using half the basic window size initially.
1686: The simple insert commands use a count to specify a repetition of the
1687: inserted text. Thus \fB10a+\-\-\-\-\fR\s-2ESC\s0 will insert a grid-like
1688: string of text.
1689: A few commands also use a preceding count as a line or column number.
1690: .PP
1691: Except for a few commands which ignore any counts (such as \fB^R\fR),
1692: the rest of the editor commands use a count to indicate a simple repetition
1693: of their effect. Thus \fB5w\fR advances five words on the current line,
1694: while \fB5\fR\s-2RETURN\s0 advances five lines. A very useful instance
1695: of a count as a repetition is a count given to the \fB.\fR command, which
1696: repeats the last changing command. If you do \fBdw\fR and then \fB3.\fR,
1697: you will delete first one and then three words. You can then delete
1698: two more words with \fB2.\fR.
1699: .NH 2
1700: More file manipulation commands
1701: .PP
1702: The following table lists the file manipulation commands which you can
1703: use when you are in
1704: .I vi.
1705: .KF
1706: .DS
1707: .TS
1708: lb l.
1709: :w write back changes
1710: :wq write and quit
1711: :x write (if necessary) and quit (same as ZZ).
1712: :e \fIname\fP edit file \fIname\fR
1713: :e! reedit, discarding changes
1714: :e + \fIname\fP edit, starting at end
1715: :e +\fIn\fP edit, starting at line \fIn\fP
1716: :e # edit alternate file
1717: :w \fIname\fP write file \fIname\fP
1718: :w! \fIname\fP overwrite file \fIname\fP
1719: :\fIx,y\fPw \fIname\fP write lines \fIx\fP through \fIy\fP to \fIname\fP
1720: :r \fIname\fP read file \fIname\fP into buffer
1721: :r !\fIcmd\fP read output of \fIcmd\fP into buffer
1722: :n edit next file in argument list
1723: :n! edit next file, discarding changes to current
1724: :n \fIargs\fP specify new argument list
1725: :ta \fItag\fP edit file containing tag \fItag\fP, at \fItag\fP
1726: .TE
1727: .DE
1728: .KE
1729: All of these commands are followed by a \s-2CR\s0 or \s-2ESC\s0.
1730: The most basic commands are \fB:w\fR and \fB:e\fR.
1731: A normal editing session on a single file will end with a \fBZZ\fR command.
1732: If you are editing for a long period of time you can give \fB:w\fR commands
1733: occasionally after major amounts of editing, and then finish
1734: with a \fBZZ\fR. When you edit more than one file, you can finish
1735: with one with a \fB:w\fR and start editing a new file by giving a \fB:e\fR
1736: command,
1737: or set
1738: .I autowrite
1739: and use \fB:n\fP <file>.
1740: .PP
1741: If you make changes to the editor's copy of a file, but do not wish to
1742: write them back, then you must give an \fB!\fR after the command you
1743: would otherwise use; this forces the editor to discard any changes
1744: you have made. Use this carefully.
1745: .PP
1746: The \fB:e\fR command can be given a \fB+\fR argument to start at the
1747: end of the file, or a \fB+\fR\fIn\fR argument to start at line \fIn\fR\^.
1748: In actuality, \fIn\fR may be any editor command not containing a space,
1749: usefully a scan like \fB+/\fIpat\fR or \fB+?\fIpat\fR.
1750: In forming new names to the \fBe\fR command, you can use the character
1751: \fB%\fR which is replaced by the current file name, or the character
1752: \fB#\fR which is replaced by the alternate file name.
1753: The alternate file name is generally the last name you typed other than
1754: the current file. Thus if you try to do a \fB:e\fR and get a diagnostic
1755: that you haven't written the file, you can give a \fB:w\fR command and
1756: then a \fB:e #\fR command to redo the previous \fB:e\fR.
1757: .PP
1758: You can write part of the buffer to a file by finding out the lines
1759: that bound the range to be written using \fB^G\fR, and giving these
1760: numbers after the \fB:\fR
1761: and before the \fBw\fP, separated by \fB,\fR's.
1762: You can also mark these lines with \fBm\fR and
1763: then use an address of the form \fB\(aa\fR\fIx\fR\fB,\fB\(aa\fR\fIy\fR
1764: on the \fBw\fR command here.
1765: .PP
1766: You can read another file into the buffer after the current line by using
1767: the \fB:r\fR command.
1768: You can similarly read in the output from a command, just use \fB!\fR\fIcmd\fR
1769: instead of a file name.
1770: .PP
1771: If you wish to edit a set of files in succession, you can give all the
1772: names on the command line, and then edit each one in turn using the command
1773: \fB:n\fR. It is also possible to respecify the list of files to be edited
1774: by giving the \fB:n\fR command a list of file names, or a pattern to
1775: be expanded as you would have given it on the initial
1776: .I vi
1777: command.
1778: .PP
1779: If you are editing large programs, you will find the \fB:ta\fR command
1780: very useful. It utilizes a data base of function names and their locations,
1781: which can be created by programs such as
1782: .I ctags,
1783: to quickly find a function whose name you give.
1784: If the \fB:ta\fR command will require the editor to switch files, then
1785: you must \fB:w\fR or abandon any changes before switching. You can repeat
1786: the \fB:ta\fR command without any arguments to look for the same tag
1787: again.
1788: .NH 2
1789: More about searching for strings
1790: .PP
1791: When you are searching for strings in the file with \fB/\fR and \fB?\fR,
1792: the editor normally places you at the next or previous occurrence
1793: of the string. If you are using an operator such as \fBd\fR,
1794: \fBc\fR or \fBy\fR, then you may well wish to affect lines up to the
1795: line before the line containing the pattern. You can give a search of
1796: the form \fB/\fR\fIpat\fR\fB/\-\fR\fIn\fR to refer to the \fIn\fR'th line
1797: before the next line containing \fIpat\fR, or you can use \fB\+\fR instead
1798: of \fB\-\fR to refer to the lines after the one containing \fIpat\fR.
1799: If you don't give a line offset, then the editor will affect characters
1800: up to the match place, rather than whole lines; thus use ``+0'' to affect
1801: to the line which matches.
1802: .PP
1803: You can have the editor ignore the case of words in the searches it does
1804: by giving the command \fB:se ic\fR\s-2CR\s0.
1805: The command \fB:se noic\fR\s-2CR\s0 turns this off.
1806: .PP
1807: Strings given to searches may actually be regular expressions.
1808: If you do not want or need this facility, you should
1809: .DS
1810: set nomagic
1811: .DE
1812: in your EXINIT.
1813: In this case,
1814: only the characters \fB\(ua\fR and \fB$\fR are special in patterns.
1815: The character \fB\e\fR is also then special (as it is most everywhere in
1816: the system), and may be used to get at the
1817: an extended pattern matching facility.
1818: It is also necessary to use a \e before a
1819: \fB/\fR in a forward scan or a \fB?\fR in a backward scan, in any case.
1820: The following table gives the extended forms when \fBmagic\fR is set.
1821: .DS
1822: .TS
1823: bl l.
1824: \(ua at beginning of pattern, matches beginning of line
1825: $ at end of pattern, matches end of line
1826: \fB\&.\fR matches any character
1827: \e< matches the beginning of a word
1828: \e> matches the end of a word
1829: [\fIstr\fP] matches any single character in \fIstr\fP
1830: [\(ua\fIstr\fP] matches any single character not in \fIstr\fP
1831: [\fIx\fP\-\fIy\fP] matches any character between \fIx\fP and \fIy\fP
1832: * matches any number of the preceding pattern
1833: .TE
1834: .DE
1835: If you use \fBnomagic\fR mode, then
1836: the \fB. [\fR and \fB*\fR primitives are given with a preceding
1837: \e.
1838: .NH 2
1839: More about input mode
1840: .PP
1841: There are a number of characters which you can use to make corrections
1842: during input mode. These are summarized in the following table.
1843: .DS
1844: .TS
1845: lb l.
1846: ^H deletes the last input character
1847: ^W deletes the last input word, defined as by \fBb\fR
1848: erase your erase character, same as \fB^H\fP
1849: kill your kill character, deletes the input on this line
1850: \e escapes a following \fB^H\fP and your erase and kill
1851: \s-2ESC\s0 ends an insertion
1852: \s-2DEL\s0 interrupts an insertion, terminating it abnormally
1853: \s-2CR\s0 starts a new line
1854: ^D backtabs over \fIautoindent\fP
1855: 0^D kills all the \fIautoindent\fP
1856: \(ua^D same as \fB0^D\fP, but restores indent next line
1857: ^V quotes the next non-printing character into the file
1858: .TE
1859: .DE
1860: .PP
1861: The most usual way of making corrections to input is by typing \fB^H\fR
1862: to correct a single character, or by typing one or more \fB^W\fR's to
1863: back over incorrect words. If you use \fB#\fR as your erase character
1864: in the normal system, it will work like \fB^H\fR.
1865: .PP
1866: Your system kill character, normally \fB@\fR, \fB^X\fP or \fB^U\fR,
1867: will erase all
1868: the input you have given on the current line.
1869: In general, you can neither
1870: erase input back around a line boundary nor can you erase characters
1871: which you did not insert with this insertion command. To make corrections
1872: on the previous line after a new line has been started you can hit \s-2ESC\s0
1873: to end the insertion, move over and make the correction, and then return
1874: to where you were to continue. The command \fBA\fR which appends at the
1875: end of the current line is often useful for continuing.
1876: .PP
1877: If you wish to type in your erase or kill character (say # or @) then
1878: you must precede it with a \fB\e\fR, just as you would do at the normal
1879: system command level. A more general way of typing non-printing characters
1880: into the file is to precede them with a \fB^V\fR. The \fB^V\fR echoes
1881: as a \fB\(ua\fR character on which the cursor rests. This indicates that
1882: the editor expects you to type a control character. In fact you may
1883: type any character and it will be inserted into the file at that point.*
1884: .FS
1885: * This is not quite true. The implementation of the editor does
1886: not allow the \s-2NULL\s0 (\fB^@\fR) character to appear in files. Also
1887: the \s-2LF\s0 (linefeed or \fB^J\fR) character is used by the editor
1888: to separate lines in the file, so it cannot appear in the middle of a
1889: line. You can insert any other character, however, if you wait for the
1890: editor to echo the \fB\(ua\fR before you type the character. In fact,
1891: the editor will treat a following letter as a request for the corresponding
1892: control character. This is the only way to type \fB^S\fR or \fB^Q\fP,
1893: since the system normally uses them to suspend and resume output
1894: and never gives them to the editor to process.
1895: .FE
1896: .PP
1897: If you are using \fIautoindent\fR you can backtab over the indent which
1898: it supplies by typing a \fB^D\fR. This backs up to a \fIshiftwidth\fR
1899: boundary.
1900: This only works immediately after the supplied \fIautoindent\fR.
1901: .PP
1902: When you are using \fIautoindent\fR you may wish to place a label at
1903: the left margin of a line. The way to do this easily is to type \fB\(ua\fR
1904: and then \fB^D\fR. The editor will move the cursor to the left margin
1905: for one line, and restore the previous indent on the next. You can also
1906: type a \fB0\fR followed immediately by a \fB^D\fR if you wish to kill
1907: all the indent and not have it come back on the next line.
1908: .NH 2
1909: Upper case only terminals
1910: .PP
1911: If your terminal has only upper case, you can still use
1912: .I vi
1913: by using the normal
1914: system convention for typing on such a terminal.
1915: Characters which you normally type are converted to lower case, and you
1916: can type upper case letters by preceding them with a \e.
1917: The characters { ~ } | \(ga are not available on such terminals, but you
1918: can escape them as \e( \e\(ua \e) \e! \e\(aa.
1919: These characters are represented on the display in the same way they
1920: are typed.\*(dd
1921: .FS
1922: \*(dd The \e character you give will not echo until you type another
1923: key.
1924: .FE
1925: .NH 2
1926: Vi and ex
1927: .PP
1928: .I Vi
1929: is actually one mode of editing within the editor
1930: .I ex.
1931: When you are running
1932: .I vi
1933: you can escape to the line oriented editor of
1934: .I ex
1935: by giving the command
1936: \fBQ\fR.
1937: All of the
1938: .B :
1939: commands which were introduced above are available in
1940: .I ex.
1941: Likewise, most
1942: .I ex
1943: commands can be invoked from
1944: .I vi
1945: using :.
1946: Just give them without the \fB:\fR and follow them with a \s-2CR\s0.
1947: .PP
1948: In rare instances, an internal error may occur in
1949: .I vi.
1950: In this case you will get a diagnostic and be left in the command mode of
1951: .I ex.
1952: You can then save your work and quit if you wish by giving a command
1953: \fBx\fR after the \fB:\fR which \fIex\fR prompts you with, or you can
1954: reenter \fIvi\fR by giving
1955: .I ex
1956: a
1957: .I vi
1958: command.
1959: .PP
1960: There are a number of things which you can do more easily in
1961: .I ex
1962: than in
1963: .I vi.
1964: Systematic changes in line oriented material are particularly easy.
1965: You can read the advanced editing documents for the editor
1966: .I ed
1967: to find out a lot more about this style of editing.
1968: Experienced
1969: users often mix their use of
1970: .I ex
1971: command mode and
1972: .I vi
1973: command mode to speed the work they are doing.
1974: .NH 2
1975: Open mode: vi on hardcopy terminals and ``glass tty's''
1976: \(dd
1977: .PP
1978: If you are on a hardcopy terminal or a terminal which does not have a cursor
1979: which can move off the bottom line, you can still use the command set of
1980: .I vi,
1981: but in a different mode.
1982: When you give a
1983: .I vi
1984: command, the editor will tell you that it is using
1985: .I open
1986: mode.
1987: This name comes from the
1988: .I open
1989: command in
1990: .I ex,
1991: which is used to get into the same mode.
1992: .PP
1993: The only difference between
1994: .I visual
1995: mode
1996: and
1997: .I open
1998: mode is the way in which the text is displayed.
1999: .PP
2000: In
2001: .I open
2002: mode the editor uses a single line window into the file, and moving backward
2003: and forward in the file causes new lines to be displayed, always below the
2004: current line.
2005: Two commands of
2006: .I vi
2007: work differently in
2008: .I open:
2009: .B z
2010: and
2011: \fB^R\fR.
2012: The
2013: .B z
2014: command does not take parameters, but rather draws a window of context around
2015: the current line and then returns you to the current line.
2016: .PP
2017: If you are on a hardcopy terminal,
2018: the
2019: .B ^R
2020: command will retype the current line.
2021: On such terminals, the editor normally uses two lines to represent the
2022: current line.
2023: The first line is a copy of the line as you started to edit it, and you work
2024: on the line below this line.
2025: When you delete characters, the editor types a number of \e's to show
2026: you the characters which are deleted. The editor also reprints the current
2027: line soon after such changes so that you can see what the line looks
2028: like again.
2029: .PP
2030: It is sometimes useful to use this mode on very slow terminals which
2031: can support
2032: .I vi
2033: in the full screen mode.
2034: You can do this by entering
2035: .I ex
2036: and using an
2037: .I open
2038: command.
2039: .LP
2040: .SH
2041: Acknowledgements
2042: .PP
2043: Bruce Englar encouraged the early development of this display editor.
2044: Peter Kessler helped bring sanity to version 2's command layout.
2045: Bill Joy wrote versions 1 and 2.0 through 2.7,
2046: and created the framework that users see in the present editor.
2047: Mark Horton added macros and other features and made the
2048: editor work on a large number of terminals and Unix systems.
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