1*usr_20.txt* For Vim version 7.3. Last change: 2006 Apr 24 2 3 VIM USER MANUAL - by Bram Moolenaar 4 5 Typing command-line commands quickly 6 7 8Vim has a few generic features that makes it easier to enter commands. Colon 9commands can be abbreviated, edited and repeated. Completion is available for 10nearly everything. 11 12|20.1| Command line editing 13|20.2| Command line abbreviations 14|20.3| Command line completion 15|20.4| Command line history 16|20.5| Command line window 17 18 Next chapter: |usr_21.txt| Go away and come back 19 Previous chapter: |usr_12.txt| Clever tricks 20Table of contents: |usr_toc.txt| 21 22============================================================================== 23*20.1* Command line editing 24 25When you use a colon (:) command or search for a string with / or ?, Vim puts 26the cursor on the bottom of the screen. There you type the command or search 27pattern. This is called the Command line. Also when it's used for entering a 28search command. 29 30The most obvious way to edit the command you type is by pressing the <BS> key. 31This erases the character before the cursor. To erase another character, 32typed earlier, first move the cursor with the cursor keys. 33 For example, you have typed this: > 34 35 :s/col/pig/ 36 37Before you hit <Enter>, you notice that "col" should be "cow". To correct 38this, you type <Left> five times. The cursor is now just after "col". Type 39<BS> and "w" to correct: > 40 41 :s/cow/pig/ 42 43Now you can press <Enter> directly. You don't have to move the cursor to the 44end of the line before executing the command. 45 46The most often used keys to move around in the command line: 47 48 <Left> one character left 49 <Right> one character right 50 <S-Left> or <C-Left> one word left 51 <S-Right> or <C-Right> one word right 52 CTRL-B or <Home> to begin of command line 53 CTRL-E or <End> to end of command line 54 55 Note: 56 <S-Left> (cursor left key with Shift key pressed) and <C-Left> (cursor 57 left key with Control pressed) will not work on all keyboards. Same 58 for the other Shift and Control combinations. 59 60You can also use the mouse to move the cursor. 61 62 63DELETING 64 65As mentioned, <BS> deletes the character before the cursor. To delete a whole 66word use CTRL-W. 67 68 /the fine pig ~ 69 70 CTRL-W 71 72 /the fine ~ 73 74CTRL-U removes all text, thus allows you to start all over again. 75 76 77OVERSTRIKE 78 79The <Insert> key toggles between inserting characters and replacing the 80existing ones. Start with this text: 81 82 /the fine pig ~ 83 84Move the cursor to the start of "fine" with <S-Left> twice (or <Left> eight 85times, if <S-Left> doesn't work). Now press <Insert> to switch to overstrike 86and type "great": 87 88 /the greatpig ~ 89 90Oops, we lost the space. Now, don't use <BS>, because it would delete the 91"t" (this is different from Replace mode). Instead, press <Insert> to switch 92from overstrike to inserting, and type the space: 93 94 /the great pig ~ 95 96 97CANCELLING 98 99You thought of executing a : or / command, but changed your mind. To get rid 100of what you already typed, without executing it, press CTRL-C or <Esc>. 101 102 Note: 103 <Esc> is the universal "get out" key. Unfortunately, in the good old 104 Vi pressing <Esc> in a command line executed the command! Since that 105 might be considered to be a bug, Vim uses <Esc> to cancel the command. 106 But with the 'cpoptions' option it can be made Vi compatible. And 107 when using a mapping (which might be written for Vi) <Esc> also works 108 Vi compatible. Therefore, using CTRL-C is a method that always works. 109 110If you are at the start of the command line, pressing <BS> will cancel the 111command. It's like deleting the ":" or "/" that the line starts with. 112 113============================================================================== 114*20.2* Command line abbreviations 115 116Some of the ":" commands are really long. We already mentioned that 117":substitute" can be abbreviated to ":s". This is a generic mechanism, all 118":" commands can be abbreviated. 119 120How short can a command get? There are 26 letters, and many more commands. 121For example, ":set" also starts with ":s", but ":s" doesn't start a ":set" 122command. Instead ":set" can be abbreviated to ":se". 123 When the shorter form of a command could be used for two commands, it 124stands for only one of them. There is no logic behind which one, you have to 125learn them. In the help files the shortest form that works is mentioned. For 126example: > 127 128 :s[ubstitute] 129 130This means that the shortest form of ":substitute" is ":s". The following 131characters are optional. Thus ":su" and ":sub" also work. 132 133In the user manual we will either use the full name of command, or a short 134version that is still readable. For example, ":function" can be abbreviated 135to ":fu". But since most people don't understand what that stands for, we 136will use ":fun". (Vim doesn't have a ":funny" command, otherwise ":fun" would 137be confusing too.) 138 139It is recommended that in Vim scripts you write the full command name. That 140makes it easier to read back when you make later changes. Except for some 141often used commands like ":w" (":write") and ":r" (":read"). 142 A particularly confusing one is ":end", which could stand for ":endif", 143":endwhile" or ":endfunction". Therefore, always use the full name. 144 145 146SHORT OPTION NAMES 147 148In the user manual the long version of the option names is used. Many options 149also have a short name. Unlike ":" commands, there is only one short name 150that works. For example, the short name of 'autoindent' is 'ai'. Thus these 151two commands do the same thing: > 152 153 :set autoindent 154 :set ai 155 156You can find the full list of long and short names here: |option-list|. 157 158============================================================================== 159*20.3* Command line completion 160 161This is one of those Vim features that, by itself, is a reason to switch from 162Vi to Vim. Once you have used this, you can't do without. 163 164Suppose you have a directory that contains these files: 165 166 info.txt 167 intro.txt 168 bodyofthepaper.txt 169 170To edit the last one, you use the command: > 171 172 :edit bodyofthepaper.txt 173 174It's easy to type this wrong. A much quicker way is: > 175 176 :edit b<Tab> 177 178Which will result in the same command. What happened? The <Tab> key does 179completion of the word before the cursor. In this case "b". Vim looks in the 180directory and finds only one file that starts with a "b". That must be the 181one you are looking for, thus Vim completes the file name for you. 182 183Now type: > 184 185 :edit i<Tab> 186 187Vim will beep, and give you: > 188 189 :edit info.txt 190 191The beep means that Vim has found more than one match. It then uses the first 192match it found (alphabetically). If you press <Tab> again, you get: > 193 194 :edit intro.txt 195 196Thus, if the first <Tab> doesn't give you the file you were looking for, press 197it again. If there are more matches, you will see them all, one at a time. 198 If you press <Tab> on the last matching entry, you will go back to what you 199first typed: > 200 201 :edit i 202 203Then it starts all over again. Thus Vim cycles through the list of matches. 204Use CTRL-P to go through the list in the other direction: 205 206 <------------------- <Tab> -------------------------+ 207 | 208 <Tab> --> <Tab> --> 209 :edit i :edit info.txt :edit intro.txt 210 <-- CTRL-P <-- CTRL-P 211 | 212 +---------------------- CTRL-P ------------------------> 213 214 215CONTEXT 216 217When you type ":set i" instead of ":edit i" and press <Tab> you get: > 218 219 :set icon 220 221Hey, why didn't you get ":set info.txt"? That's because Vim has context 222sensitive completion. The kind of words Vim will look for depends on the 223command before it. Vim knows that you cannot use a file name just after a 224":set" command, but you can use an option name. 225 Again, if you repeat typing the <Tab>, Vim will cycle through all matches. 226There are quite a few, it's better to type more characters first: > 227 228 :set isk<Tab> 229 230Gives: > 231 232 :set iskeyword 233 234Now type "=" and press <Tab>: > 235 236 :set iskeyword=@,48-57,_,192-255 237 238What happens here is that Vim inserts the old value of the option. Now you 239can edit it. 240 What is completed with <Tab> is what Vim expects in that place. Just try 241it out to see how it works. In some situations you will not get what you 242want. That's either because Vim doesn't know what you want, or because 243completion was not implemented for that situation. In that case you will get 244a <Tab> inserted (displayed as ^I). 245 246 247LIST MATCHES 248 249When there are many matches, you would like to see an overview. Do this by 250pressing CTRL-D. For example, pressing CTRL-D after: > 251 252 :set is 253 254results in: > 255 256 :set is 257 incsearch isfname isident iskeyword isprint 258 :set is 259 260Vim lists the matches and then comes back with the text you typed. You can 261now check the list for the item you wanted. If it isn't there, you can use 262<BS> to correct the word. If there are many matches, type a few more 263characters before pressing <Tab> to complete the rest. 264 If you have watched carefully, you will have noticed that "incsearch" 265doesn't start with "is". In this case "is" stands for the short name of 266"incsearch". (Many options have a short and a long name.) Vim is clever 267enough to know that you might have wanted to expand the short name of the 268option into the long name. 269 270 271THERE IS MORE 272 273The CTRL-L command completes the word to the longest unambiguous string. If 274you type ":edit i" and there are files "info.txt" and "info_backup.txt" you 275will get ":edit info". 276 277The 'wildmode' option can be used to change the way completion works. 278The 'wildmenu' option can be used to get a menu-like list of matches. 279Use the 'suffixes' option to specify files that are less important and appear 280at the end of the list of files. 281The 'wildignore' option specifies files that are not listed at all. 282 283More about all of this here: |cmdline-completion| 284 285============================================================================== 286*20.4* Command line history 287 288In chapter 3 we briefly mentioned the history. The basics are that you can 289use the <Up> key to recall an older command line. <Down> then takes you back 290to newer commands. 291 292There are actually four histories. The ones we will mention here are for ":" 293commands and for "/" and "?" search commands. The "/" and "?" commands share 294the same history, because they are both search commands. The two other 295histories are for expressions and input lines for the input() function. 296|cmdline-history| 297 298Suppose you have done a ":set" command, typed ten more colon commands and then 299want to repeat that ":set" command again. You could press ":" and then ten 300times <Up>. There is a quicker way: > 301 302 :se<Up> 303 304Vim will now go back to the previous command that started with "se". You have 305a good chance that this is the ":set" command you were looking for. At least 306you should not have to press <Up> very often (unless ":set" commands is all 307you have done). 308 309The <Up> key will use the text typed so far and compare it with the lines in 310the history. Only matching lines will be used. 311 If you do not find the line you were looking for, use <Down> to go back to 312what you typed and correct that. Or use CTRL-U to start all over again. 313 314To see all the lines in the history: > 315 316 :history 317 318That's the history of ":" commands. The search history is displayed with this 319command: > 320 321 :history / 322 323CTRL-P will work like <Up>, except that it doesn't matter what you already 324typed. Similarly for CTRL-N and <Down>. CTRL-P stands for previous, CTRL-N 325for next. 326 327============================================================================== 328*20.5* Command line window 329 330Typing the text in the command line works different from typing text in Insert 331mode. It doesn't allow many commands to change the text. For most commands 332that's OK, but sometimes you have to type a complicated command. That's where 333the command line window is useful. 334 335Open the command line window with this command: > 336 337 q: 338 339Vim now opens a (small) window at the bottom. It contains the command line 340history, and an empty line at the end: 341 342 +-------------------------------------+ 343 |other window | 344 |~ | 345 |file.txt=============================| 346 |:e c | 347 |:e config.h.in | 348 |:set path=.,/usr/include,, | 349 |:set iskeyword=@,48-57,_,192-255 | 350 |:set is | 351 |:q | 352 |: | 353 |command-line=========================| 354 | | 355 +-------------------------------------+ 356 357You are now in Normal mode. You can use the "hjkl" keys to move around. For 358example, move up with "5k" to the ":e config.h.in" line. Type "$h" to go to 359the "i" of "in" and type "cwout". Now you have changed the line to: 360 361 :e config.h.out ~ 362 363Now press <Enter> and this command will be executed. The command line window 364will close. 365 The <Enter> command will execute the line under the cursor. It doesn't 366matter whether Vim is in Insert mode or in Normal mode. 367 Changes in the command line window are lost. They do not result in the 368history to be changed. Except that the command you execute will be added to 369the end of the history, like with all executed commands. 370 371The command line window is very useful when you want to have overview of the 372history, lookup a similar command, change it a bit and execute it. A search 373command can be used to find something. 374 In the previous example the "?config" search command could have been used 375to find the previous command that contains "config". It's a bit strange, 376because you are using a command line to search in the command line window. 377While typing that search command you can't open another command line window, 378there can be only one. 379 380============================================================================== 381 382Next chapter: |usr_21.txt| Go away and come back 383 384Copyright: see |manual-copyright| vim:tw=78:ts=8:ft=help:norl: 385