Learning the vi and Vim Editors, 7th Edition

Simple Edits

When you enter text in your file, it is rarely perfect. You find typos or want to improve on a phrase; sometimes your program has a bug. Once you enter text, you have to be able to change it, delete it, move it, or copy it. Figure 2-3 shows the kinds of edits you might want to make to a file. The edits are indicated by proofreading marks.

Figure 2-3. Proofreading edits

In vi you can perform any of these edits with a few basic keystrokes: i for insert (which you’ve already seen); a for append; c for change; and d for delete. To move or copy text, you use pairs of commands. You move text with a d for “delete,” then a p for “put”; you copy text with a y for “yank,” then a p for “put.” Each type of edit is described in this section. Figure 2-4 shows the vi commands you use to make the edits marked in Figure 2-3.

Figure 2-4. Edits with vi commands

Inserting New Text

You have already seen the insert command used to enter text into a new file. You also use the insert command while editing existing text to add missing characters, words, and sentences. In the file practice, suppose you have the sentence:

 you can scroll
 the page, move the cursor, deletelines, and insert characters.

with the cursor positioned as shown. To insert With a screen editor at the beginning of the sentence, enter ...