Practical Vim: Edit Text at the Speed of Thought

329 Pages·2012·8.064 MB·English

by  Drew Neil

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What readers are saying about
Practical Vim
I’ve learned more about Vim by reading this book than I have from any other
resource.
➤ Robert Evans
Software Engineer, Code Wranglers
After reading a couple of chapters of Practical Vim, I realized how little I knew.
From intermediate to beginner in thirty minutes!
➤ Henrik Nyh
Software Engineer
Practical Vim continues to change what I believe a text editor can do.
➤ John P. Daigle
Developer, ThoughtWorks, Inc.
Drew has continued the wonderful work he has done with Vimcasts in this book,
a must-read for anyone serious about Vim.
➤ Anders Janmyr
Developer, Jayway
Practical Vim bridges the gap between the official documentation and how to really
use Vim. After reading a few chapters, I switched to using Vim as my default editor.
I’ve never looked back.
➤ Javier Collado
QA Automation Engineer, Canonical Ltd.
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Drew Neil does more than show the right tool for the job. He paces the narrative,
laying out the philosophy behind each decision. Instead of expecting you to
memorize everything, Practical Vim teaches you to think with Vim under your
fingertips.
➤ Mislav Marohnic
Consultant
I’ve been using Vim for server maintenance for more than fifteen years now, but
I’ve only recently started using it for software development. I thought I knew Vim,
but Practical Vim has massively improved my code-wrangling productivity.
➤ Graeme Mathieson
Software Engineer, Rubaidh Ltd.
Practical Vim made me realize how much there is still to learn about Vim. Every
single tip can be easily and immediately applied to your workflow and will improve
your productivity manifold.
➤ Mathias Meyer
Author, Riak Handbook
Practical Vim is the ultimate treasure chest when it comes to Vim knowledge. I’ve
used Vim daily for over two years now, and this book has been nothing short of
a revelation for me.
➤ Felix Geisendörfer
Cofounder, Transloadit
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Practical Vim
Edit Text at the Speed of Thought
Drew Neil
The Pragmatic Bookshelf
Dallas, Texas • Raleigh, North Carolina
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Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products
are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and The Pragmatic
Programmers, LLC was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in
initial capital letters or in all capitals. The Pragmatic Starter Kit, The Pragmatic Programmer,
Pragmatic Programming, Pragmatic Bookshelf, PragProg and the linking g device are trade-
marks of The Pragmatic Programmers, LLC.
Every precaution was taken in the preparation of this book. However, the publisher assumes
no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages that may result from the use of
information (including program listings) contained herein.
Our Pragmatic courses, workshops, and other products can help you and your team create
better software and have more fun. For more information, as well as the latest Pragmatic
titles, please visit us at http://pragprog.com.
The team that produced this book includes:
Kay Keppler (editor)
Potomac Indexing, LLC (indexer)
Molly McBeath (copyeditor)
David J. Kelly (typesetter)
Janet Furlow (producer)
Juliet Benda (rights)
Ellie Callahan (support)
Copyright © 2012 The Pragmatic Bookshelf.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without the prior consent of the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America.
ISBN-13: 978-1-934356-98-2
Encoded using the finest acid-free high-entropy binary digits.
Book version: P1.0—September 2012
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Contents
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Read Me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Read the Forgotten Manual . . . . . . . . . xvii
1. The Vim Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Tip 1. Meet the Dot Command 1
Tip 2. Don’t Repeat Yourself 4
Tip 3. Take One Step Back, Then Three Forward 6
Tip 4. Act, Repeat, Reverse 8
Tip 5. Find and Replace by Hand 9
Tip 6. Meet the Dot Formula 11
Part I — Modes
2. Normal Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Tip 7. Pause with Your Brush Off the Page 15
Tip 8. Chunk Your Undos 16
Tip 9. Compose Repeatable Changes 17
Tip 10. Use Counts to Do Simple Arithmetic 20
Tip 11. Don’t Count If You Can Repeat 22
Tip 12. Combine and Conquer 24
3. Insert Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Tip 13. Make Corrections Instantly from Insert Mode 27
Tip 14. Get Back to Normal Mode 28
Tip 15. Paste from a Register Without Leaving Insert Mode 29
Tip 16. Do Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations in Place 31
Tip 17. Insert Unusual Characters by Character Code 32
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Contents • vi
Tip 18. Insert Unusual Characters by Digraph 33
Tip 19. Overwrite Existing Text with Replace Mode 34
4. Visual Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Tip 20. Grok Visual Mode 37
Tip 21. Define a Visual Selection 39
Tip 22. Repeat Line-Wise Visual Commands 41
Tip 23. Prefer Operators to Visual Commands Where Possible 43
Tip 24. Edit Tabular Data with Visual-Block Mode 45
Tip 25. Change Columns of Text 47
Tip 26. Append After a Ragged Visual Block 48
5. Command-Line Mode . . . . . . . . . . 51
Tip 27. Meet Vim’s Command Line 51
Tip 28. Execute a Command on One or More Consecutive
Lines 54
Tip 29. Duplicate or Move Lines Using ‘:t’ and ‘:m’ Commands 59
Tip 30. Run Normal Mode Commands Across a Range 61
Tip 31. Repeat the Last Ex Command 63
Tip 32. Tab-Complete Your Ex Commands 65
Tip 33. Insert the Current Word at the Command Prompt 66
Tip 34. Recall Commands from History 68
Tip 35. Run Commands in the Shell 71
Part II — Files
6. Manage Multiple Files . . . . . . . . . . 77
Tip 36. Track Open Files with the Buffer List 77
Tip 37. Group Buffers into a Collection with the Argument
List 80
Tip 38. Manage Hidden Files 83
Tip 39. Divide Your Workspace into Split Windows 85
Tip 40. Organize Your Window Layouts with Tab Pages 89
7. Open Files and Save Them to Disk . . . . . . . 93
Tip 41. Open a File by Its Filepath Using ‘:edit’ 93
Tip 42. Open a File by Its Filename Using ‘:find’ 96
Tip 43. Explore the File System with netrw 98
Tip 44. Save Files to Nonexistent Directories 101
Tip 45. Save a File as the Super User 102
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Contents • vii
Part III — Getting Around Faster
8. Navigate Inside Files with Motions . . . . . . . 107
Tip 46. Keep Your Fingers on the Home Row 108
Tip 47. Distinguish Between Real Lines and Display Lines 110
Tip 48. Move Word-Wise 112
Tip 49. Find by Character 114
Tip 50. Search to Navigate 118
Tip 51. Trace Your Selection with Precision Text Objects 120
Tip 52. Delete Around, or Change Inside 124
Tip 53. Mark Your Place and Snap Back to It 126
Tip 54. Jump Between Matching Parentheses 127
9. Navigate Between Files with Jumps . . . . . . . 131
Tip 55. Traverse the Jump List 131
Tip 56. Traverse the Change List 133
Tip 57. Jump to the Filename Under the Cursor 134
Tip 58. Snap Between Files Using Global Marks 137
Part IV — Registers
10. Copy and Paste . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Tip 59. Delete, Yank, and Put with Vim’s Unnamed Register 141
Tip 60. Grok Vim’s Registers 144
Tip 61. Replace a Visual Selection with a Register 149
Tip 62. Paste from a Register 151
Tip 63. Interact with the System Clipboard 154
11. Macros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Tip 64. Record and Execute a Macro 158
Tip 65. Normalize, Strike, Abort 161
Tip 66. Play Back with a Count 163
Tip 67. Repeat a Change on Contiguous Lines 164
Tip 68. Append Commands to a Macro 168
Tip 69. Act Upon a Collection of Files 169
Tip 70. Evaluate an Iterator to Number Items in a List 174
Tip 71. Edit the Contents of a Macro 176
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Contents • viii
Part V — Patterns
12. Matching Patterns and Literals . . . . . . . . 183
Tip 72. Tune the Case Sensitivity of Search Patterns 183
Tip 73. Use the \v Pattern Switch for Regex Searches 184
Tip 74. Use the \V Literal Switch for Verbatim Searches 187
Tip 75. Use Parentheses to Capture Submatches 189
Tip 76. Stake the Boundaries of a Word 190
Tip 77. Stake the Boundaries of a Match 192
Tip 78. Escape Problem Characters 193
13. Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Tip 79. Meet the Search Command 199
Tip 80. Highlight Search Matches 201
Tip 81. Preview the First Match Before Execution 202
Tip 82. Count the Matches for the Current Pattern 204
Tip 83. Offset the Cursor to the End of a Search Match 204
Tip 84. Operate on a Complete Search Match 206
Tip 85. Create Complex Patterns by Iterating upon Search
History 209
Tip 86. Search for the Current Visual Selection 212
14. Substitution . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Tip 87. Meet the Substitute Command 216
Tip 88. Find and Replace Every Match in a File 217
Tip 89. Eyeball Each Substitution 219
Tip 90. Reuse the Last Search Pattern 220
Tip 91. Replace with the Contents of a Register 222
Tip 92. Repeat the Previous Substitute Command 224
Tip 93. Rearrange CSV Fields Using Submatches 228
Tip 94. Perform Arithmetic on the Replacement 229
Tip 95. Swap Two or More Words 230
Tip 96. Find and Replace Across Multiple Files 233
15. Global Commands . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Tip 97. Meet the Global Command 237
Tip 98. Delete Lines Containing a Pattern 238
Tip 99. Collect TODO Items in a Register 240
Tip 100. Alphabetize the Properties of Each Rule in a CSS File 242
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