1*tips.txt* For Vim version 7.3. Last change: 2009 Nov 07 2 3 4 VIM REFERENCE MANUAL by Bram Moolenaar 5 6 7Tips and ideas for using Vim *tips* 8 9These are just a few that we thought would be helpful for many users. 10You can find many more tips on the wiki. The URL can be found on 11http://www.vim.org 12 13Don't forget to browse the user manual, it also contains lots of useful tips 14|usr_toc.txt|. 15 16Editing C programs |C-editing| 17Finding where identifiers are used |ident-search| 18Switching screens in an xterm |xterm-screens| 19Scrolling in Insert mode |scroll-insert| 20Smooth scrolling |scroll-smooth| 21Correcting common typing mistakes |type-mistakes| 22Counting words, lines, etc. |count-items| 23Restoring the cursor position |restore-position| 24Renaming files |rename-files| 25Change a name in multiple files |change-name| 26Speeding up external commands |speed-up| 27Useful mappings |useful-mappings| 28Compressing the help files |gzip-helpfile| 29Executing shell commands in a window |shell-window| 30Hex editing |hex-editing| 31Using <> notation in autocommands |autocmd-<>| 32Highlighting matching parens |match-parens| 33 34============================================================================== 35Editing C programs *C-editing* 36 37There are quite a few features in Vim to help you edit C program files. Here 38is an overview with tags to jump to: 39 40|usr_29.txt| Moving through programs chapter in the user manual. 41|usr_30.txt| Editing programs chapter in the user manual. 42|C-indenting| Automatically set the indent of a line while typing 43 text. 44|=| Re-indent a few lines. 45|format-comments| Format comments. 46 47|:checkpath| Show all recursively included files. 48|[i| Search for identifier under cursor in current and 49 included files. 50|[_CTRL-I| Jump to match for "[i" 51|[I| List all lines in current and included files where 52 identifier under the cursor matches. 53|[d| Search for define under cursor in current and included 54 files. 55 56|CTRL-]| Jump to tag under cursor (e.g., definition of a 57 function). 58|CTRL-T| Jump back to before a CTRL-] command. 59|:tselect| Select one tag out of a list of matching tags. 60 61|gd| Go to Declaration of local variable under cursor. 62|gD| Go to Declaration of global variable under cursor. 63 64|gf| Go to file name under the cursor. 65 66|%| Go to matching (), {}, [], /* */, #if, #else, #endif. 67|[/| Go to previous start of comment. 68|]/| Go to next end of comment. 69|[#| Go back to unclosed #if, #ifdef, or #else. 70|]#| Go forward to unclosed #else or #endif. 71|[(| Go back to unclosed '(' 72|])| Go forward to unclosed ')' 73|[{| Go back to unclosed '{' 74|]}| Go forward to unclosed '}' 75 76|v_ab| Select "a block" from "[(" to "])", including braces 77|v_ib| Select "inner block" from "[(" to "])" 78|v_aB| Select "a block" from "[{" to "]}", including brackets 79|v_iB| Select "inner block" from "[{" to "]}" 80 81============================================================================== 82Finding where identifiers are used *ident-search* 83 84You probably already know that |tags| can be used to jump to the place where a 85function or variable is defined. But sometimes you wish you could jump to all 86the places where a function or variable is being used. This is possible in 87two ways: 881. Using the |:grep| command. This should work on most Unix systems, 89 but can be slow (it reads all files) and only searches in one directory. 902. Using ID utils. This is fast and works in multiple directories. It uses a 91 database to store locations. You will need some additional programs for 92 this to work. And you need to keep the database up to date. 93 94Using the GNU id-tools: 95 96What you need: 97- The GNU id-tools installed (mkid is needed to create ID and lid is needed to 98 use the macros). 99- An identifier database file called "ID" in the current directory. You can 100 create it with the shell command "mkid file1 file2 ..". 101 102Put this in your .vimrc: > 103 map _u :call ID_search()<Bar>execute "/\\<" . g:word . "\\>"<CR> 104 map _n :n<Bar>execute "/\\<" . g:word . "\\>"<CR> 105 106 function! ID_search() 107 let g:word = expand("<cword>") 108 let x = system("lid --key=none ". g:word) 109 let x = substitute(x, "\n", " ", "g") 110 execute "next " . x 111 endfun 112 113To use it, place the cursor on a word, type "_u" and vim will load the file 114that contains the word. Search for the next occurrence of the word in the 115same file with "n". Go to the next file with "_n". 116 117This has been tested with id-utils-3.2 (which is the name of the id-tools 118archive file on your closest gnu-ftp-mirror). 119 120[the idea for this comes from Andreas Kutschera] 121 122============================================================================== 123Switching screens in an xterm *xterm-screens* *xterm-save-screen* 124 125(From comp.editors, by Juergen Weigert, in reply to a question) 126 127:> Another question is that after exiting vim, the screen is left as it 128:> was, i.e. the contents of the file I was viewing (editing) was left on 129:> the screen. The output from my previous like "ls" were lost, 130:> ie. no longer in the scrolling buffer. I know that there is a way to 131:> restore the screen after exiting vim or other vi like editors, 132:> I just don't know how. Helps are appreciated. Thanks. 133: 134:I imagine someone else can answer this. I assume though that vim and vi do 135:the same thing as each other for a given xterm setup. 136 137They not necessarily do the same thing, as this may be a termcap vs. 138terminfo problem. You should be aware that there are two databases for 139describing attributes of a particular type of terminal: termcap and 140terminfo. This can cause differences when the entries differ AND when of 141the programs in question one uses terminfo and the other uses termcap 142(also see |+terminfo|). 143 144In your particular problem, you are looking for the control sequences 145^[[?47h and ^[[?47l. These switch between xterms alternate and main screen 146buffer. As a quick workaround a command sequence like > 147 echo -n "^[[?47h"; vim ... ; echo -n "^[[?47l" 148may do what you want. (My notation ^[ means the ESC character, further down 149you'll see that the databases use \E instead). 150 151On startup, vim echoes the value of the termcap variable ti (terminfo: 152smcup) to the terminal. When exiting, it echoes te (terminfo: rmcup). Thus 153these two variables are the correct place where the above mentioned control 154sequences should go. 155 156Compare your xterm termcap entry (found in /etc/termcap) with your xterm 157terminfo entry (retrieved with "infocmp -C xterm"). Both should contain 158entries similar to: > 159 :te=\E[2J\E[?47l\E8:ti=\E7\E[?47h: 160 161PS: If you find any difference, someone (your sysadmin?) should better check 162 the complete termcap and terminfo database for consistency. 163 164NOTE 1: If you recompile Vim with FEAT_XTERM_SAVE defined in feature.h, the 165builtin xterm will include the mentioned "te" and "ti" entries. 166 167NOTE 2: If you want to disable the screen switching, and you don't want to 168change your termcap, you can add these lines to your .vimrc: > 169 :set t_ti= t_te= 170 171============================================================================== 172Scrolling in Insert mode *scroll-insert* 173 174If you are in insert mode and you want to see something that is just off the 175screen, you can use CTRL-X CTRL-E and CTRL-X CTRL-Y to scroll the screen. 176 |i_CTRL-X_CTRL-E| 177 178To make this easier, you could use these mappings: > 179 :inoremap <C-E> <C-X><C-E> 180 :inoremap <C-Y> <C-X><C-Y> 181(Type this literally, make sure the '<' flag is not in 'cpoptions'). 182You then lose the ability to copy text from the line above/below the cursor 183|i_CTRL-E|. 184 185Also consider setting 'scrolloff' to a larger value, so that you can always see 186some context around the cursor. If 'scrolloff' is bigger than half the window 187height, the cursor will always be in the middle and the text is scrolled when 188the cursor is moved up/down. 189 190============================================================================== 191Smooth scrolling *scroll-smooth* 192 193If you like the scrolling to go a bit smoother, you can use these mappings: > 194 :map <C-U> <C-Y><C-Y><C-Y><C-Y><C-Y><C-Y><C-Y><C-Y><C-Y><C-Y><C-Y><C-Y><C-Y><C-Y><C-Y><C-Y> 195 :map <C-D> <C-E><C-E><C-E><C-E><C-E><C-E><C-E><C-E><C-E><C-E><C-E><C-E><C-E><C-E><C-E><C-E> 196 197(Type this literally, make sure the '<' flag is not in 'cpoptions'). 198 199============================================================================== 200Correcting common typing mistakes *type-mistakes* 201 202When there are a few words that you keep on typing in the wrong way, make 203abbreviations that correct them. For example: > 204 :ab teh the 205 :ab fro for 206 207============================================================================== 208Counting words, lines, etc. *count-items* 209 210To count how often any pattern occurs in the current buffer use the substitute 211command and add the 'n' flag to avoid the substitution. The reported number 212of substitutions is the number of items. Examples: > 213 214 :%s/./&/gn characters 215 :%s/\i\+/&/gn words 216 :%s/^//n lines 217 :%s/the/&/gn "the" anywhere 218 :%s/\<the\>/&/gn "the" as a word 219 220You might want to reset 'hlsearch' or do ":nohlsearch". 221Add the 'e' flag if you don't want an error when there are no matches. 222 223An alternative is using |v_g_CTRL-G| in Visual mode. 224 225If you want to find matches in multiple files use |:vimgrep|. 226 227 *count-bytes* 228If you want to count bytes, you can use this: 229 230 Visually select the characters (block is also possible) 231 Use "y" to yank the characters 232 Use the strlen() function: > 233 :echo strlen(@") 234A line break is counted for one byte. 235 236============================================================================== 237Restoring the cursor position *restore-position* 238 239Sometimes you want to write a mapping that makes a change somewhere in the 240file and restores the cursor position, without scrolling the text. For 241example, to change the date mark in a file: > 242 :map <F2> msHmtgg/Last [cC]hange:\s*/e+1<CR>"_D"=strftime("%Y %b %d")<CR>p'tzt`s 243 244Breaking up saving the position: 245 ms store cursor position in the 's' mark 246 H go to the first line in the window 247 mt store this position in the 't' mark 248 249Breaking up restoring the position: 250 't go to the line previously at the top of the window 251 zt scroll to move this line to the top of the window 252 `s jump to the original position of the cursor 253 254For something more advanced see |winsaveview()| and |winrestview()|. 255 256============================================================================== 257Renaming files *rename-files* 258 259Say I have a directory with the following files in them (directory picked at 260random :-): 261 262buffer.c 263charset.c 264digraph.c 265... 266 267and I want to rename *.c *.bla. I'd do it like this: > 268 269 $ vim 270 :r !ls *.c 271 :%s/\(.*\).c/mv & \1.bla 272 :w !sh 273 :q! 274 275============================================================================== 276Change a name in multiple files *change-name* 277 278Example for using a script file to change a name in several files: 279 280 Create a file "subs.vim" containing substitute commands and a :update 281 command: > 282 :%s/Jones/Smith/g 283 :%s/Allen/Peter/g 284 :update 285< 286 Execute Vim on all files you want to change, and source the script for 287 each argument: > 288 289 vim *.let 290 argdo source subs.vim 291 292See |:argdo|. 293 294============================================================================== 295Speeding up external commands *speed-up* 296 297In some situations, execution of an external command can be very slow. This 298can also slow down wildcard expansion on Unix. Here are a few suggestions to 299increase the speed. 300 301If your .cshrc (or other file, depending on the shell used) is very long, you 302should separate it into a section for interactive use and a section for 303non-interactive use (often called secondary shells). When you execute a 304command from Vim like ":!ls", you do not need the interactive things (for 305example, setting the prompt). Put the stuff that is not needed after these 306lines: > 307 308 if ($?prompt == 0) then 309 exit 0 310 endif 311 312Another way is to include the "-f" flag in the 'shell' option, e.g.: > 313 314 :set shell=csh\ -f 315 316(the backslash is needed to include the space in the option). 317This will make csh completely skip the use of the .cshrc file. This may cause 318some things to stop working though. 319 320============================================================================== 321Useful mappings *useful-mappings* 322 323Here are a few mappings that some people like to use. 324 325 *map-backtick* > 326 :map ' ` 327Make the single quote work like a backtick. Puts the cursor on the column of 328a mark, instead of going to the first non-blank character in the line. 329 330 *emacs-keys* 331For Emacs-style editing on the command-line: > 332 " start of line 333 :cnoremap <C-A> <Home> 334 " back one character 335 :cnoremap <C-B> <Left> 336 " delete character under cursor 337 :cnoremap <C-D> <Del> 338 " end of line 339 :cnoremap <C-E> <End> 340 " forward one character 341 :cnoremap <C-F> <Right> 342 " recall newer command-line 343 :cnoremap <C-N> <Down> 344 " recall previous (older) command-line 345 :cnoremap <C-P> <Up> 346 " back one word 347 :cnoremap <Esc><C-B> <S-Left> 348 " forward one word 349 :cnoremap <Esc><C-F> <S-Right> 350 351NOTE: This requires that the '<' flag is excluded from 'cpoptions'. |<>| 352 353 *format-bullet-list* 354This mapping will format any bullet list. It requires that there is an empty 355line above and below each list entry. The expression commands are used to 356be able to give comments to the parts of the mapping. > 357 358 :let m = ":map _f :set ai<CR>" " need 'autoindent' set 359 :let m = m . "{O<Esc>" " add empty line above item 360 :let m = m . "}{)^W" " move to text after bullet 361 :let m = m . "i <CR> <Esc>" " add space for indent 362 :let m = m . "gq}" " format text after the bullet 363 :let m = m . "{dd" " remove the empty line 364 :let m = m . "5lDJ" " put text after bullet 365 :execute m |" define the mapping 366 367(<> notation |<>|. Note that this is all typed literally. ^W is "^" "W", not 368CTRL-W. You can copy/paste this into Vim if '<' is not included in 369'cpoptions'.) 370 371Note that the last comment starts with |", because the ":execute" command 372doesn't accept a comment directly. 373 374You also need to set 'textwidth' to a non-zero value, e.g., > 375 :set tw=70 376 377A mapping that does about the same, but takes the indent for the list from the 378first line (Note: this mapping is a single long line with a lot of spaces): > 379 :map _f :set ai<CR>}{a <Esc>WWmmkD`mi<CR><Esc>kkddpJgq}'mJO<Esc>j 380< 381 *collapse* 382These two mappings reduce a sequence of empty (;b) or blank (;n) lines into a 383single line > 384 :map ;b GoZ<Esc>:g/^$/.,/./-j<CR>Gdd 385 :map ;n GoZ<Esc>:g/^[ <Tab>]*$/.,/[^ <Tab>]/-j<CR>Gdd 386 387============================================================================== 388Compressing the help files *gzip-helpfile* 389 390For those of you who are really short on disk space, you can compress the help 391files and still be able to view them with Vim. This makes accessing the help 392files a bit slower and requires the "gzip" program. 393 394(1) Compress all the help files: "gzip doc/*.txt". 395 396(2) Edit "doc/tags" and change the ".txt" to ".txt.gz": > 397 :%s=\(\t.*\.txt\)\t=\1.gz\t= 398 399(3) Add this line to your vimrc: > 400 set helpfile={dirname}/help.txt.gz 401 402Where {dirname} is the directory where the help files are. The |gzip| plugin 403will take care of decompressing the files. 404You must make sure that $VIMRUNTIME is set to where the other Vim files are, 405when they are not in the same location as the compressed "doc" directory. See 406|$VIMRUNTIME|. 407 408============================================================================== 409Executing shell commands in a window *shell-window* 410 411There have been questions for the possibility to execute a shell in a window 412inside Vim. The answer: you can't! Including this would add a lot of code to 413Vim, which is a good reason not to do this. After all, Vim is an editor, it 414is not supposed to do non-editing tasks. However, to get something like this, 415you might try splitting your terminal screen or display window with the 416"splitvt" program. You can probably find it on some ftp server. The person 417that knows more about this is Sam Lantinga <slouken@cs.ucdavis.edu>. 418An alternative is the "window" command, found on BSD Unix systems, which 419supports multiple overlapped windows. Or the "screen" program, found at 420www.uni-erlangen.de, which supports a stack of windows. 421 422============================================================================== 423Hex editing *hex-editing* *using-xxd* 424 425See section |23.4| of the user manual. 426 427If one has a particular extension that one uses for binary files (such as exe, 428bin, etc), you may find it helpful to automate the process with the following 429bit of autocmds for your <.vimrc>. Change that "*.bin" to whatever 430comma-separated list of extension(s) you find yourself wanting to edit: > 431 432 " vim -b : edit binary using xxd-format! 433 augroup Binary 434 au! 435 au BufReadPre *.bin let &bin=1 436 au BufReadPost *.bin if &bin | %!xxd 437 au BufReadPost *.bin set ft=xxd | endif 438 au BufWritePre *.bin if &bin | %!xxd -r 439 au BufWritePre *.bin endif 440 au BufWritePost *.bin if &bin | %!xxd 441 au BufWritePost *.bin set nomod | endif 442 augroup END 443 444============================================================================== 445Using <> notation in autocommands *autocmd-<>* 446 447The <> notation is not recognized in the argument of an :autocmd. To avoid 448having to use special characters, you could use a self-destroying mapping to 449get the <> notation and then call the mapping from the autocmd. Example: 450 451 *map-self-destroy* > 452 " This is for automatically adding the name of the file to the menu list. 453 " It uses a self-destroying mapping! 454 " 1. use a line in the buffer to convert the 'dots' in the file name to \. 455 " 2. store that in register '"' 456 " 3. add that name to the Buffers menu list 457 " WARNING: this does have some side effects, like overwriting the 458 " current register contents and removing any mapping for the "i" command. 459 " 460 autocmd BufNewFile,BufReadPre * nmap i :nunmap i<CR>O<C-R>%<Esc>:.g/\./s/\./\\./g<CR>0"9y$u:menu Buffers.<C-R>9 :buffer <C-R>%<C-V><CR><CR> 461 autocmd BufNewFile,BufReadPre * normal i 462 463Another method, perhaps better, is to use the ":execute" command. In the 464string you can use the <> notation by preceding it with a backslash. Don't 465forget to double the number of existing backslashes and put a backslash before 466'"'. 467> 468 autocmd BufNewFile,BufReadPre * exe "normal O\<C-R>%\<Esc>:.g/\\./s/\\./\\\\./g\<CR>0\"9y$u:menu Buffers.\<C-R>9 :buffer \<C-R>%\<C-V>\<CR>\<CR>" 469 470For a real buffer menu, user functions should be used (see |:function|), but 471then the <> notation isn't used, which defeats using it as an example here. 472 473============================================================================== 474Highlighting matching parens *match-parens* 475 476This example shows the use of a few advanced tricks: 477- using the |CursorMoved| autocommand event 478- using |searchpairpos()| to find a matching paren 479- using |synID()| to detect whether the cursor is in a string or comment 480- using |:match| to highlight something 481- using a |pattern| to match a specific position in the file. 482 483This should be put in a Vim script file, since it uses script-local variables. 484It skips matches in strings or comments, unless the cursor started in string 485or comment. This requires syntax highlighting. 486 487A slightly more advanced version is used in the |matchparen| plugin. 488> 489 let s:paren_hl_on = 0 490 function s:Highlight_Matching_Paren() 491 if s:paren_hl_on 492 match none 493 let s:paren_hl_on = 0 494 endif 495 496 let c_lnum = line('.') 497 let c_col = col('.') 498 499 let c = getline(c_lnum)[c_col - 1] 500 let plist = split(&matchpairs, ':\|,') 501 let i = index(plist, c) 502 if i < 0 503 return 504 endif 505 if i % 2 == 0 506 let s_flags = 'nW' 507 let c2 = plist[i + 1] 508 else 509 let s_flags = 'nbW' 510 let c2 = c 511 let c = plist[i - 1] 512 endif 513 if c == '[' 514 let c = '\[' 515 let c2 = '\]' 516 endif 517 let s_skip ='synIDattr(synID(line("."), col("."), 0), "name") ' . 518 \ '=~? "string\\|comment"' 519 execute 'if' s_skip '| let s_skip = 0 | endif' 520 521 let [m_lnum, m_col] = searchpairpos(c, '', c2, s_flags, s_skip) 522 523 if m_lnum > 0 && m_lnum >= line('w0') && m_lnum <= line('w$') 524 exe 'match Search /\(\%' . c_lnum . 'l\%' . c_col . 525 \ 'c\)\|\(\%' . m_lnum . 'l\%' . m_col . 'c\)/' 526 let s:paren_hl_on = 1 527 endif 528 endfunction 529 530 autocmd CursorMoved,CursorMovedI * call s:Highlight_Matching_Paren() 531 autocmd InsertEnter * match none 532< 533 534 vim:tw=78:ts=8:ft=help:norl: 535