Learning the vi and Vim Editors, 8th Edition

Chapter 4. Beyond the Basics

You have already been introduced to the basic editing commands, i, a, c, d, and y. This chapter expands on what you already know about editing. It covers:

• Descriptions of additional editing facilities, with a review of the general command form

• vi and Vim command-line options, including different ways to open a file for editing

• Making use of registers that store yanks and deletions

• Marking your place in a file

• Other advanced edits

More Command Combinations

In Chapter 2, “Simple Editing”, you learned the edit commands c, d, and y, as well as how to combine them with movements and numbers (such as 2cw or 4dd). In Chapter 3, “Moving Around in a Hurry”, you added many more movement commands to your repertoire. Although the fact that you can combine edit commands with movement is not a new concept to you, Table 4-1 presents several additional editing options you have not seen before.

Table 4-1. More editing commands

Change	Delete	Copy	From cursor to…
cH	dH	yH	Top of screen
cL	dL	yL	Bottom of screen
c+	d+	y+	Next line
c5|	d5|	y5|	Column 5 of current line
2c)	2d)	2y)	Second sentence following
c{	d{	y{	Previous paragraph
c/pattern	d/pattern	y/pattern	Pattern
cn	dn	yn	Next pattern
cG	dG	yG	End of file
c13G	d13G	y13G	Line number 13

Notice how all of the sequences in Table 4-1 follow one of two general patterns:

(command)(number)(text object)

or:

(number)(command)(text object)

number is the optional numeric argument. ...