why-vi.rocks/index.md

# Why vi Rocks

**[vi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi)** is the _de facto_ standard
Unix editor, you find it in every *NIX derived OS.

Here you will find 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 which make
**[vi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi)** rock \m/. These all work
with at least [nvi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvi) 1.79 and
2.1.3 (unicode).

We are always looking for [suggestions](/suggest.html) that go beyond the basics.

Helpful documents:

- [Roman Zolotarev: Edit text with vi(1)](https://rgz.ee/vi.html)<br />
- [Hugo Daniel: vi is not vim](https://hugodaniel.pt/posts/vi-is-not-vim/)<br />
- [Jeff W: vi help](http://www.jeffw.com/vi/vi_help.txt) / [Maarten Litmaath: vi reference](http://www.ungerhu.com/jxh/vi.html)<br />
- [alphanrrrd: extremely concise cheatsheet](http://www.alphanrrrd.org/vi.html) / [ViEmu: Graphical vi cheatsheet](http://www.viemu.com/a_vi_vim_graphical_cheat_sheet_tutorial.html)<br />
- [The vi archive and FAQ (mirror)](http://git.larryhynes.net/vi/)

#### Yank / delete an arbitrary number of lines

	1) mark the first line: mk
	2) move to last line
	3a) yank: y'k
	3b) delete: d'k
	4) move to destination line
	5) put with P or p

#### Apply regex to an arbitrary number of lines

	1) mark the first line: mk
	2) mark the last line: ml
	:'k,'ls/regex/power/g

#### Add # to block of text

	:'k,'ls/^/#/

#### Remove trailing whitespace of block of text

	:'k,'ls/\ *$//

#### Remove the first N (5) characters from every line

	:%s/^.\{0,5\}//

#### Search and replace PATHs, using different delimiter

	:%s#/usr/local/log#/var/log#g

#### Write file as root

	:w !doas tee %

#### Diff the file on disk with the file in the buffer

	:w !diff -u % -

#### Make a backup of the file on disk

	:!cp % %.bak

#### Sort all lines

	:%!sort

#### Sort paragraph

	!}sort

<sub><sup>} won't be shown in the command.</sup></sub>

#### Sort from current line to EOF

	!Gsort

<sub><sup>G won't be shown in the command.</sup></sub>

#### Uniq all lines

	:%!uniq

#### Uniq paragraph

	!}uniq

<sub><sup>} won't be shown in the command.</sup></sub>

#### Uniq from current line to EOF

	!Guniq

<sub><sup>G won't be shown in the command.</sup></sub>

#### Underline all lines starting with CHAPTER

	:g/^CHAPTER /t.|s/./=/g

#### Search for "pattern", print the containing function (start with def) and line number

	:g/pattern/?^ *def ?#

#### Add # to paragraph containing "pattern"

	:g/pattern/?^$?+,//-s/^/#

#### Sort content of multiline CSS blocks

	:g/{$/+,/^}/-!sort

#### Sort content of multiline CSS blocks (media queries)

	:g/^[^@].*{$/+,/}/-!sort

#### Reformat HTML paragraphs to a fixed width (40)

	:g/<p>/+,/<\/p>/-!fmt -40

#### Swap "Lastname, Firstname" to "Firstname, Lastname"

	:%s/\(.*\), \(.*\)/\2 \1/

#### Change all text to lowercase 

	 :%s/.*/\L&/

#### Join all lines

	:%j

#### Copy (t) or move (m) lines containing "pattern"

	:g/pattern/t$
	:g/pattern/m$

#### Select a column (3rd) from formated text seperated by ':' 

	:%!awk -F':' '{print $3}' 

#### Insert the sum of a list of numbers after an arbitrary number of lines

	1) mark the first line: mk
	2) mark the last line: ml
	:'k,'l!awk 'END{print "Total:", i}{i+=$1; print}'

	More compact version:
	:'k,'l!awk 'END{print "Total:", i} ++i || 1'

#### Email the current paragraph

	:?^$?+,//-w !mail -s "<subject>" email@example.com

#### Enable and use ex history

	1) Set ESC key to enable history, or add to .exrc:
	:set cedit=<CTRL-V><ESC>

	2) Use it with:	
	:<ESC>