| *usr_20.txt* For Vim version 7.4. Last change: 2006 Apr 24 |
| |
| VIM USER MANUAL - by Bram Moolenaar |
| |
| Typing command-line commands quickly |
| |
| |
| Vim has a few generic features that makes it easier to enter commands. Colon |
| commands can be abbreviated, edited and repeated. Completion is available for |
| nearly everything. |
| |
| |20.1| Command line editing |
| |20.2| Command line abbreviations |
| |20.3| Command line completion |
| |20.4| Command line history |
| |20.5| Command line window |
| |
| Next chapter: |usr_21.txt| Go away and come back |
| Previous chapter: |usr_12.txt| Clever tricks |
| Table of contents: |usr_toc.txt| |
| |
| ============================================================================== |
| *20.1* Command line editing |
| |
| When you use a colon (:) command or search for a string with / or ?, Vim puts |
| the cursor on the bottom of the screen. There you type the command or search |
| pattern. This is called the Command line. Also when it's used for entering a |
| search command. |
| |
| The most obvious way to edit the command you type is by pressing the <BS> key. |
| This erases the character before the cursor. To erase another character, |
| typed earlier, first move the cursor with the cursor keys. |
| For example, you have typed this: > |
| |
| :s/col/pig/ |
| |
| Before you hit <Enter>, you notice that "col" should be "cow". To correct |
| this, you type <Left> five times. The cursor is now just after "col". Type |
| <BS> and "w" to correct: > |
| |
| :s/cow/pig/ |
| |
| Now you can press <Enter> directly. You don't have to move the cursor to the |
| end of the line before executing the command. |
| |
| The most often used keys to move around in the command line: |
| |
| <Left> one character left |
| <Right> one character right |
| <S-Left> or <C-Left> one word left |
| <S-Right> or <C-Right> one word right |
| CTRL-B or <Home> to begin of command line |
| CTRL-E or <End> to end of command line |
| |
| Note: |
| <S-Left> (cursor left key with Shift key pressed) and <C-Left> (cursor |
| left key with Control pressed) will not work on all keyboards. Same |
| for the other Shift and Control combinations. |
| |
| You can also use the mouse to move the cursor. |
| |
| |
| DELETING |
| |
| As mentioned, <BS> deletes the character before the cursor. To delete a whole |
| word use CTRL-W. |
| |
| /the fine pig ~ |
| |
| CTRL-W |
| |
| /the fine ~ |
| |
| CTRL-U removes all text, thus allows you to start all over again. |
| |
| |
| OVERSTRIKE |
| |
| The <Insert> key toggles between inserting characters and replacing the |
| existing ones. Start with this text: |
| |
| /the fine pig ~ |
| |
| Move the cursor to the start of "fine" with <S-Left> twice (or <Left> eight |
| times, if <S-Left> doesn't work). Now press <Insert> to switch to overstrike |
| and type "great": |
| |
| /the greatpig ~ |
| |
| Oops, we lost the space. Now, don't use <BS>, because it would delete the |
| "t" (this is different from Replace mode). Instead, press <Insert> to switch |
| from overstrike to inserting, and type the space: |
| |
| /the great pig ~ |
| |
| |
| CANCELLING |
| |
| You thought of executing a : or / command, but changed your mind. To get rid |
| of what you already typed, without executing it, press CTRL-C or <Esc>. |
| |
| Note: |
| <Esc> is the universal "get out" key. Unfortunately, in the good old |
| Vi pressing <Esc> in a command line executed the command! Since that |
| might be considered to be a bug, Vim uses <Esc> to cancel the command. |
| But with the 'cpoptions' option it can be made Vi compatible. And |
| when using a mapping (which might be written for Vi) <Esc> also works |
| Vi compatible. Therefore, using CTRL-C is a method that always works. |
| |
| If you are at the start of the command line, pressing <BS> will cancel the |
| command. It's like deleting the ":" or "/" that the line starts with. |
| |
| ============================================================================== |
| *20.2* Command line abbreviations |
| |
| Some of the ":" commands are really long. We already mentioned that |
| ":substitute" can be abbreviated to ":s". This is a generic mechanism, all |
| ":" commands can be abbreviated. |
| |
| How short can a command get? There are 26 letters, and many more commands. |
| For example, ":set" also starts with ":s", but ":s" doesn't start a ":set" |
| command. Instead ":set" can be abbreviated to ":se". |
| When the shorter form of a command could be used for two commands, it |
| stands for only one of them. There is no logic behind which one, you have to |
| learn them. In the help files the shortest form that works is mentioned. For |
| example: > |
| |
| :s[ubstitute] |
| |
| This means that the shortest form of ":substitute" is ":s". The following |
| characters are optional. Thus ":su" and ":sub" also work. |
| |
| In the user manual we will either use the full name of command, or a short |
| version that is still readable. For example, ":function" can be abbreviated |
| to ":fu". But since most people don't understand what that stands for, we |
| will use ":fun". (Vim doesn't have a ":funny" command, otherwise ":fun" would |
| be confusing too.) |
| |
| It is recommended that in Vim scripts you write the full command name. That |
| makes it easier to read back when you make later changes. Except for some |
| often used commands like ":w" (":write") and ":r" (":read"). |
| A particularly confusing one is ":end", which could stand for ":endif", |
| ":endwhile" or ":endfunction". Therefore, always use the full name. |
| |
| |
| SHORT OPTION NAMES |
| |
| In the user manual the long version of the option names is used. Many options |
| also have a short name. Unlike ":" commands, there is only one short name |
| that works. For example, the short name of 'autoindent' is 'ai'. Thus these |
| two commands do the same thing: > |
| |
| :set autoindent |
| :set ai |
| |
| You can find the full list of long and short names here: |option-list|. |
| |
| ============================================================================== |
| *20.3* Command line completion |
| |
| This is one of those Vim features that, by itself, is a reason to switch from |
| Vi to Vim. Once you have used this, you can't do without. |
| |
| Suppose you have a directory that contains these files: |
| |
| info.txt |
| intro.txt |
| bodyofthepaper.txt |
| |
| To edit the last one, you use the command: > |
| |
| :edit bodyofthepaper.txt |
| |
| It's easy to type this wrong. A much quicker way is: > |
| |
| :edit b<Tab> |
| |
| Which will result in the same command. What happened? The <Tab> key does |
| completion of the word before the cursor. In this case "b". Vim looks in the |
| directory and finds only one file that starts with a "b". That must be the |
| one you are looking for, thus Vim completes the file name for you. |
| |
| Now type: > |
| |
| :edit i<Tab> |
| |
| Vim will beep, and give you: > |
| |
| :edit info.txt |
| |
| The beep means that Vim has found more than one match. It then uses the first |
| match it found (alphabetically). If you press <Tab> again, you get: > |
| |
| :edit intro.txt |
| |
| Thus, if the first <Tab> doesn't give you the file you were looking for, press |
| it again. If there are more matches, you will see them all, one at a time. |
| If you press <Tab> on the last matching entry, you will go back to what you |
| first typed: > |
| |
| :edit i |
| |
| Then it starts all over again. Thus Vim cycles through the list of matches. |
| Use CTRL-P to go through the list in the other direction: |
| |
| <------------------- <Tab> -------------------------+ |
| | |
| <Tab> --> <Tab> --> |
| :edit i :edit info.txt :edit intro.txt |
| <-- CTRL-P <-- CTRL-P |
| | |
| +---------------------- CTRL-P ------------------------> |
| |
| |
| CONTEXT |
| |
| When you type ":set i" instead of ":edit i" and press <Tab> you get: > |
| |
| :set icon |
| |
| Hey, why didn't you get ":set info.txt"? That's because Vim has context |
| sensitive completion. The kind of words Vim will look for depends on the |
| command before it. Vim knows that you cannot use a file name just after a |
| ":set" command, but you can use an option name. |
| Again, if you repeat typing the <Tab>, Vim will cycle through all matches. |
| There are quite a few, it's better to type more characters first: > |
| |
| :set isk<Tab> |
| |
| Gives: > |
| |
| :set iskeyword |
| |
| Now type "=" and press <Tab>: > |
| |
| :set iskeyword=@,48-57,_,192-255 |
| |
| What happens here is that Vim inserts the old value of the option. Now you |
| can edit it. |
| What is completed with <Tab> is what Vim expects in that place. Just try |
| it out to see how it works. In some situations you will not get what you |
| want. That's either because Vim doesn't know what you want, or because |
| completion was not implemented for that situation. In that case you will get |
| a <Tab> inserted (displayed as ^I). |
| |
| |
| LIST MATCHES |
| |
| When there are many matches, you would like to see an overview. Do this by |
| pressing CTRL-D. For example, pressing CTRL-D after: > |
| |
| :set is |
| |
| results in: > |
| |
| :set is |
| incsearch isfname isident iskeyword isprint |
| :set is |
| |
| Vim lists the matches and then comes back with the text you typed. You can |
| now check the list for the item you wanted. If it isn't there, you can use |
| <BS> to correct the word. If there are many matches, type a few more |
| characters before pressing <Tab> to complete the rest. |
| If you have watched carefully, you will have noticed that "incsearch" |
| doesn't start with "is". In this case "is" stands for the short name of |
| "incsearch". (Many options have a short and a long name.) Vim is clever |
| enough to know that you might have wanted to expand the short name of the |
| option into the long name. |
| |
| |
| THERE IS MORE |
| |
| The CTRL-L command completes the word to the longest unambiguous string. If |
| you type ":edit i" and there are files "info.txt" and "info_backup.txt" you |
| will get ":edit info". |
| |
| The 'wildmode' option can be used to change the way completion works. |
| The 'wildmenu' option can be used to get a menu-like list of matches. |
| Use the 'suffixes' option to specify files that are less important and appear |
| at the end of the list of files. |
| The 'wildignore' option specifies files that are not listed at all. |
| |
| More about all of this here: |cmdline-completion| |
| |
| ============================================================================== |
| *20.4* Command line history |
| |
| In chapter 3 we briefly mentioned the history. The basics are that you can |
| use the <Up> key to recall an older command line. <Down> then takes you back |
| to newer commands. |
| |
| There are actually four histories. The ones we will mention here are for ":" |
| commands and for "/" and "?" search commands. The "/" and "?" commands share |
| the same history, because they are both search commands. The two other |
| histories are for expressions and input lines for the input() function. |
| |cmdline-history| |
| |
| Suppose you have done a ":set" command, typed ten more colon commands and then |
| want to repeat that ":set" command again. You could press ":" and then ten |
| times <Up>. There is a quicker way: > |
| |
| :se<Up> |
| |
| Vim will now go back to the previous command that started with "se". You have |
| a good chance that this is the ":set" command you were looking for. At least |
| you should not have to press <Up> very often (unless ":set" commands is all |
| you have done). |
| |
| The <Up> key will use the text typed so far and compare it with the lines in |
| the history. Only matching lines will be used. |
| If you do not find the line you were looking for, use <Down> to go back to |
| what you typed and correct that. Or use CTRL-U to start all over again. |
| |
| To see all the lines in the history: > |
| |
| :history |
| |
| That's the history of ":" commands. The search history is displayed with this |
| command: > |
| |
| :history / |
| |
| CTRL-P will work like <Up>, except that it doesn't matter what you already |
| typed. Similarly for CTRL-N and <Down>. CTRL-P stands for previous, CTRL-N |
| for next. |
| |
| ============================================================================== |
| *20.5* Command line window |
| |
| Typing the text in the command line works different from typing text in Insert |
| mode. It doesn't allow many commands to change the text. For most commands |
| that's OK, but sometimes you have to type a complicated command. That's where |
| the command line window is useful. |
| |
| Open the command line window with this command: > |
| |
| q: |
| |
| Vim now opens a (small) window at the bottom. It contains the command line |
| history, and an empty line at the end: |
| |
| +-------------------------------------+ |
| |other window | |
| |~ | |
| |file.txt=============================| |
| |:e c | |
| |:e config.h.in | |
| |:set path=.,/usr/include,, | |
| |:set iskeyword=@,48-57,_,192-255 | |
| |:set is | |
| |:q | |
| |: | |
| |command-line=========================| |
| | | |
| +-------------------------------------+ |
| |
| You are now in Normal mode. You can use the "hjkl" keys to move around. For |
| example, move up with "5k" to the ":e config.h.in" line. Type "$h" to go to |
| the "i" of "in" and type "cwout". Now you have changed the line to: |
| |
| :e config.h.out ~ |
| |
| Now press <Enter> and this command will be executed. The command line window |
| will close. |
| The <Enter> command will execute the line under the cursor. It doesn't |
| matter whether Vim is in Insert mode or in Normal mode. |
| Changes in the command line window are lost. They do not result in the |
| history to be changed. Except that the command you execute will be added to |
| the end of the history, like with all executed commands. |
| |
| The command line window is very useful when you want to have overview of the |
| history, lookup a similar command, change it a bit and execute it. A search |
| command can be used to find something. |
| In the previous example the "?config" search command could have been used |
| to find the previous command that contains "config". It's a bit strange, |
| because you are using a command line to search in the command line window. |
| While typing that search command you can't open another command line window, |
| there can be only one. |
| |
| ============================================================================== |
| |
| Next chapter: |usr_21.txt| Go away and come back |
| |
| Copyright: see |manual-copyright| vim:tw=78:ts=8:ft=help:norl: |