VI common commands

Cursor movements in command mode: h=move the cursor to the left one character position l=move the cursor to the right one character position j=move the cursor down one line k=move the cursor up one line Changing mode: i=enter insert mode, the characters typed in will be inserted before the current cursor position. If you specify a count, all the text that had been inserted will be repeated that many times. a=enter insert mode, the characters typed in will be inserted after the current cursor position. If you specify a count, all the text that had been inserted will be repeated that many times. Text manipulation in command mode: x=delete character under the cursor. Count specifies how many characters to delete. The characters will be deleted after the cursor. u=undo the last change to the file. Typing u again will re-do the change. r=replace one character under the cursor. Specify count to replace a number of characters Cutting and Yanking:

The command commonly used command for cutting is d. This command deletes text from the file. The command is preceded by an optional count and followed by a movement specification. If you double the command by typing dd, it deletes the current line. Here are some combinations of these:

d^

deletes from current cursor position to the beginning of the line.

d$

deletes from current cursor position to the end of the line.

dw

deletes from current cursor position to the end of the word.

3dd

deletes three lines from current cursor position downwards.

There is also the y command which operates similarly to the d command which take text from the file without deleting the text.

Pasting:

The commands to paste are p and P. The only differ in the position relative to the cursor where they paste. p pastes the specified or general buffer after the cursor position, while P pastes the specified or general buffer before the cursor position. Specifying count before the paste command pastes text the specified number of times.