My Vim Tips

Very Useful Notes by Darin Brezeale

[Basic]

• :cd
• :pwd
• :e foo.c    to edit another file
• :e #        to jump back to the previous editing file
• Ctrl+L      redraw whole screen

[Compile]

• :make       invoke make, and jump to first line of error automatically
• :set makeprg=gmake
• :set makeprg=gmake\ \CC=gcc296
• :clist  error list
• :cfirst first line of error
• :clast  last line of error
• :cn     next line of error

[Buffers]

• :buffers
• :ls         list buffers
• :bd         delete (close) a buffer

[Navigate]

• :<num>      go to line <num>
• ]] / ][     next { / } in the first column
• [[ / []     previous { / } in the first column
• %           jump to corresponding brace, #ifdef and #endif

[Bookmark]

• m<a-z>      mark the position with the the single letter you supplied
• '<a-z>      jump to the pos mark by the letter
• ''          jump to the last jump pos

[Search]

• /\t         search (and may highlight) <Tab>
• *           search the keyword under cursor
• #           search previous keyword under cursor
• /<CR>       redo the last search
• :set incsearch  incremental search
• :set nois       disable incremental search

[Replace]

• :s/<search>/<replace>
• :25, 34 s/foo/bar/gc    replace 'foo' between line 25 and 34 with 'bar'
•                         g for do it multi times per line
•                         c for confirmation
•                         region could also be selected in visual (block) mode and invoke through :s
• :1, $s/foo/bar/g        global replace all foo with bar in current file
• %s/foo/bar/g            same as above

[Highlight]

• :set list   display non-printable chars
• :set hlsearch   highlight matched items
• :nohl           no highlight when search

[Ctags]

• :set tags=<comma separated expression>  setup 'tags' file search path, usually './tags,tags,~/mytags'
• Ctrl-]      jump to the definition of the symbol under cursor
• Ctrl-T      jump back
• :ta /foo    tag search for symbol 'foo', stop at the first match
• :tn         tag search, next match
• :tselect    select and jump from the tag list (also invoked through g then ctrl-])

[Macro]

• q register    Start macro recording into the named register. For instance, qa starts recording and puts the macro into register a.
• q    End recording.
• @register    Replay the macro stored in the named register. For instance, @a replays the macro in register a.