HOWTO: Use vim efficiently¹

View list of open buffers

:ls

Close certain buffer with number <n>

:bd <n>

Search for upper case letters

/\u
/\w\u

Search for abbreviations

/\v<[A-Z]+>

Copy text to clipboard buffer in visual mode

a) Select text for copying

b) "+y

Copy word under cursor

If cursor in middle of word:

yiw OR biw

If cursor at beginning of word:

yw

Sorting

Sort selected text in file: select with visual mode (v, V), then

!sort

Replacement

Replace multiple consecutive spaces with single space in Vim:

%s![^ ]\zs  \+! !g

Many substitutions can be done in Vim easier than with other regex dialects by using the \zs and \ze meta-sequences. What they do is to exclude part of the match from the final result, either the part before the sequence (\zs, “s” for “start here”) or the part after (\ze, “e” for “end here”). In this case, the pattern must match one non-space character first ([^ ]) but the following \zs says that the final match result (which is what will be replaced) starts after that character.

Highlighting

Highlight current line:

:set cursorline

Scrolling

Ctrl + e -- move screen up one line at a time
Ctrl + y -- move screen down one line at a time
Ctrl + u -- move screen up 1/2 page
Ctrl + d -- move screen down 1/2 page
Ctrl + b -- move screen up 1 page
Ctrl + f -- move screen down 1 page

zz -- move current line to the middle of the screen
zt -- move current line to the top of the screen
zb -- move current line to the bottom of the screen

H -- move to the top of the screen
M -- move to the middle of the screen
L -- move to the bottom of the screen

^  -- move to the first non-blank character of the line
g_ -- move to the last  non-blank character of the line

Bookmarking

mg -- create bookmark called 'g'
`g -- go to bookmark called 'g'

Scrollbinding

:set scrollbinding // :set scb
:set noscrollbinding // :set noscb

Move to matching bracket

%

Search for current word (word under cursor)

*  Search forwards for next occurence of current word
#  Search backwards for previous occurence of current word

Managing large code base with vim and ctags²

1) Run ctags recursively over entire source code directory:

    ctags -R ../..  # tags file is created on output

2) Open source code file with vim

3) Navigate to subroutine

4) Press ‘Ctrl+]’ to jump to subroutine definition

5) Press ‘Ctrl+t’ to jump back to original location

6) Other commands to try:

    :tag <identifier>
    :tags
    Ctrl+]
    Ctrl+t
    :tselect
    :stjump <identifier>

Save file as³

1) Write current state of ‘hello.txt’ into file ‘world.txt’, keep working on original file ‘hello.txt’:

    :w world.txt

2) Write current state of ‘hello.txt’ into file ‘world.txt’, start working on new file ‘world.txt’:

    :sav world.txt

Enable persistent undo (maybe placed into .vimrc file)

set undodir=~/.vim/undodir
set undofile
set undolevels=1000
set undoreload=10000

Enable code folding (place into .vimrc)

set foldmethod=manual

Enable autosave of folds (place into .vimrc)

au BufWinLeave ?* mkview
au BufWinEnter ?* silent loadview

Commands over folds

z{c,C} -- close  {all} folds
z{o,O} -- open   {all} folds
z{a,A} -- toggle {all} folds
z{r,R} -- reduce {all} folds
z{m,M} -- close one more level of folds

Mappings to control folds with <F9> (place into .vimrc)

inoremap <F9> <C-O>za
nnoremap <F9> za
onoremap <F9> <C-C>za
vnoremap <F9> zf

Title case

:s/\<\(\w\)\(\w*\)\>/\u\1\L\2/g

Swap two windows with each other⁴

<C-w> <C-r>

Indent block of pasted text

>
5>> // indent five lines
>%  // indent curly braces block, start from first '{'
>iB // indent curly braces block, start anywhere inside block
]p  // paste block of text observing indentation
>i} // indent inner {} block

Switch from vertical to horisontal window split[^5]

Ctrl + w, K  // vertical   to horisontal
Ctrl + w, H  // horisontal to vertical