Jan Zwiener's Vim config

Common commands (Command mode)

Note: ^ means Ctrl key

Key	Description
:q!	Exit :-)
Esc, ^C	Command mode
i	Insert mode
w	Next word
b	Previous word
e	End of word
s	Replace character and enter insert mode
S	Replace complete line
I	Insert at beginning of line
A	Insert at end of line
u	Undo
^R	Redo
.	Redo input (very useful)
ci"	Edit current "string"
ci'	Edit current 'string'
ciw	Edit current word
cit	Edit tag content (very useful for HTML editing)
cib	Edit current parenthesis block
ciB	Edit current curly brace block
"ay	Copy to buffer a
"ap	Yank from buffer a
^Ra	Insert buffer a in ex mode
"1	Insert from buffer history (0-9)
>>	Shift rightwards
<<	Shift leftwards
^X ^O	Omnicomplete
^N	Autocomplete
^X ^F	Filename complete
^X ^L	Line complete
:tabnew	New tab
:tabclose	Close tab
gt	Next tab
gT	Previous tab
^PageUp	Next tab
^PageDown	Previous tab
:make	Run make command
:cl	Error list (from make)
:cn / :cp	Next error
:cd	Change directory
:lcd	Change directory (for current window)
=	Format selected area
==	Format current line
=}	Format current function
gg=G	Format complete file
qa	Record macro to buffer a
q	End macro recording
@a	Play macro a
set wrap!	Toggle line wrap mode
set list!	Show non printable characters
^A	Number increment
^X	Number decrement
J	Join lines
:noh	Remove search highlighting
:retab	Convert tab to space (be careful with strings in programs)
:retab!	Convert space to tab (be careful with strings in programs)
:r file	Append content of file to current file
:r! cmd	Append output of "cmd" to current file
:!cmd	Execute command "cmd"
:!sort	Example: sort selected area
:Ex	File Explorer
:%s/\r//g	Delete DOS carriage returns ^M
:%! <command>	Run OS command on whole file
:.! <command>	Run OS command on current line
:left	Left-align line
:right	Right-align line
:center	Center line
:redraw	Redraw window
:set var?	Show current variable state
:set ffs=unix,dos	Recognize unix and dos end-of-line formats
:set ffs=mac	Recognize mac end-of-line format
:set ff?	Display current end-of-line format
:set ff=unix	Convert file to unix EOL format
xp	Swap characters
:X	Activate encryption, asking for key
:setlocal cm=blowfish	Encryption method blowfish (strong) for this file
:set cm=blowfish	Encryption method blowfish (strong) as default
g ^g	Count the words in the file
gq	Format the selection regions according to textwidth (tw)
:set tw=50	Set the textwidth to 50 characters
:e scp://path/file	Edit file via SSH: scp://user@host/path/file
:e scp://path/	Open directory via SSH: scp://user@host/path/
:bufdo cmd	Execute command on every open buffer
:tabdo cmd	Execute command on every tab
:bro ol	Browse through recently used files
:help digraphs	Digraphs (special unicode characters)
:dig	Digraphs overview
^K	Digraph mode, followed by 2 characters from :dig table

Navigation

Key	Description
hjkl	Cursor keys
+	Jump to next line
-	Jump to previous line
w	Next word
b	Previous word
e	End of word
H	Set cursor to top
M	Set cursor to center
L	Set cursor to bottom
^O	Navigate back
^I	Navigation forward
)	Sentence forward
(	Sentence backward
*	Search for word under cursor
g;	Goto last edit
gi	Goto last edit and enter insert mode
gf	Open file under cursor
G	Goto end of file
gg	Goto first line
15G	Goto line 15
15gg	Goto line 15
:15	Goto line 15
gd	Goto local definition
gD	Goto global definition
[[	Goto previous {
]]	Goto next }
ma	Mark current position as "a"
'a	Goto to "a"
%	Goto to matching element
fX	Goto character X in line
Fx	Go back to character X in line
tX	Goto one character before X
TX	Go back to one character before X
^W gf	Open file in new tab

Scrolling

Key	Description
^U	Scroll half a screen up
^D	Scroll half a screen down
^E	Scroll down one line
^Y	Scroll up one line
^F	Scroll down one screen
^B	Scroll up one screen
gk	Go up one line in wrapped line
gj	Go down one line in wrapped line
zt	Set current line to the top of the screen
zb	Set current line to the bottom of the screen
zz	Set current line to the center of the screen

Buffer

Key	Description
:ls	Show open buffer
:1b	Open buffer 1
:b1	Open buffer 1
:bd	Delete buffer
:bn, :bp	Buffer next, buffer previous
:enew	Create and show new buffer (new file)
:ball	Show all buffers on the screen

Search

Key	Description
/pattern	Search for pattern
/^R"	Use clipboard content as pattern
/^Ra	Search for the content of buffer a
/^R^W	Search for word under cursor
?	Search backwards
n	Repeat search
N	Repeat search backwards
:s/old/new/g	Search and replace in current line
:%s/old/new/g	Search and replace in current buffer
:%s/old/new/gc	Ask for confirmation before replacing (c option)
:%s/old/new/gci	Case insensitive
:%s/^/hello/g	Add "hello" to the beginning of every line
:g/string/d	Delete all lines containing "string"
:v/string/d	Delete all lines not containing "string"
:e **/*foo*	Search for files recursively with foo in name
:%s//new/g	Use last search in search and replace

Regular expressions in search and replace

Key	Description
.	Any character
*	(0-n) times the previous character
?	(0-1) times the previous character
\+	(1-n) times the previous character
\{n}	(n) times the previous character
\{min,max}	(min-max) times the previous character
\{-}	(0-max) times the previous character (non-greedy)
\{-min,max}	(min-max) times the previous character (non-greedy)
\{-n}	(n) times (min. 1) of the previous character (non-greedy)
^	Beginning of line
$	End of line
[ ]	e.g. [a-f]
\( \)	Pattern can be reused with \1, \2 ...
\< \>	Word begin < and word end >
\s	Whitespace
\S	Non-whitespace
\d	Number
\a	Character
\w	Word char
\W	Non-word char
&	Found pattern for replace (:%s/jan/Zwiener, &/g)
\&	Logical AND
\@!	Logical NOT. e.g.: foo but not foobar: foo(bar)@!
\r	New line for replace (comma to new line :%s/, /\r/)
\v	Very magic: all characters have a special meaning
\V	Very nomagic: Use the pattern as it is
\x	Hex character: the same as [0-9a-fA-F]

Logical OR is | (pipe character/vertical bar)

Examples for regular expressions

Key	Description
/jo[ha]n	Search john or joan
/\<\d\d\d\d\>	Search exactly 4 digits
:%s/^\(.*\)\n\1$/\1/	Delete duplicated lines
/.*Bush\&.*Clinton	Search for Bush AND Clinton
/\v#\x{6}	CSS Hex-Color: #00ffee (\v very magic, \x = hex)
/\v"[^"]+"	Search for string in ""

Search for Bush OR Clinton:

/.*Bush\|.*Clinton

For the Markdown in the table in this file, the commands have to be put into backtick characters. To put every key in the tables in backticks, the following Vim search and replace regular expression is used:

\v^(\s+)(.{-})(\s*\|)
%s//\1`\2`\3

Split view

Key	Description
^w w	Toggle between views
^w v	Vertical split
^w s	Horizontal split
^w c	Close split
^w jkhl	Jump between views
:only	Close alll
^w r	Rotate view
^w R	Rotate view back

Visual-Mode

Key	Description
v	Start selection
V	Select lines
gv	Restore last selection
^Q	Visual block-mode
r	Replace
I	Insert
A	Append
p	Paste
u	Make lower-case
U	Make upper-case
g?	ROT13 "encryption"

Browse source code with tags (ctags)

Generate tags (database) file with a shortcut (here F11):

map <F11> :!ctags -R --c++-kinds=+p --fields=+iaS --extra=+q .<CR>

Add path for tags database to .vimrc:

set tags=./tags,tags,./../tags,./../../tags,./../../../tags

Key	Description
:tag main	Goto tag "main"
:tn	Goto next tag
:tp	Goto previous tag
:ts main	Search for "main"

Search in files

Key	Description
:cd	Show current directory
:cd Verz	Change current directoy
:vimgrep /{pattern}/[g][j] {file}	Search for pattern in current directory
:noautocmd vimgrep /{pattern}/[g][j] {file}	Fast search (disable autocmds)
:noautocmd vimgrep /{pattern}/j **/*.c	Recursive search
:copen	Display search results
:cclose	Close search results
:colder	Display older search results
:cnewer	Display newer search results

Option g, j:

• g = Show all matches (recommended)
• j = Don't jump to first match

Spell check

Key	Description
:set spell!	Toggle spell check
:set spelllang=de	Activate German spell check
z=	Correct word
]s	Next item
[s	Previous item
zg	Add word to dictionary

Folds

Key	Description
:set folding=syntax	Activate folding with "syntax" method
zi	Toggle folds
zv	Show current position
zm	Close fold
zM	Close all folds
zr	Open fold
zR	Open all folds

VimL

Example: IP address auto-generate

:for i in range(1,10) | put ='192.168.0.'.i | endfor

UTF-8 with Vim

Key	Description
:set enc=cp850	Use cp850 encoding for the current file (or cp437 for MS-DOS)
:set enc=latin1	Use latin1 encoding for the current file
:set enc=utf-8	Use utf-8 encoding for the current file
:set fenc=utf-8	The next :w will write the file utf-8 encoded
:set bomb	Activates a BOM for the next write
:e ++enc=<encoding>	Reload file with another encoding

Example:

A file is latin1 encoded and is loaded in Vim, i.e. :set enc? results in "latin1" and the file is displayed correctly in Vim. Now we want to convert the file to utf-8. Do :set fenc=utf-8 and write the file :w. Reload the file with the correct encoding: :e ++enc=<utf-8>.

Debugger (Vim 8.1)

Type :help terminal-debug for a tutorial. Short version:

packadd termdebug
:Termdebug programfile
:Break in source code
:Evaluate (on visually selected text)

Installation from Github

Installation on Linux:

git clone git@github.com:jnz/dotvim.git ~/.vim
ln -s ~/.vim/vimrc ~/.vimrc
ln -s ~/.vim/gvimrc ~/.gvimrc
cd ~/.vim
git submodule update --init --recursive

Installation on Windows

git clone git@github.com:jnz/dotvim.git ~/vimfiles
cd ~/vimfiles
git submodule update --init --recursive

Update all submodules

git submodule foreach git checkout master
git submodule foreach git pull

Add a new submodule

git submodule add URL pack/plugins/start/NAME
git submodule update --init --recursive

Remove a submodule

edit .gitmodules and remove the module
edit .git/config and remove the module
git rm --cached pack/plugins/start/submodulepath
rm -rf pack/plugins/start/submodulepath