Practical Vim, 2nd Edition

Tip 27

Meet Vim’s Command Line

Command-Line mode prompts us to enter an Ex command, a search pattern, or an expression. In this tip, we’ll meet a selection of Ex commands that operate on the text in a buffer, and we’ll learn about some of the special key mappings that can be used in this mode.

Table 7. Ex Commands That Operate on the Text in a Buffer

Command

Effect

:[range]delete [x]

Delete specified lines [into register x]

:[range]yank [x]

Yank specified lines [into register x]

:[line]put [x]

Put the text from register x after the specified line

:[range]copy {address}

Copy the specified lines to below the line specified by {address}

:[range]move {address}

Move the specified lines to below the line specified by {address}

:[range]join

Join the specified lines ...