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Working with Vi editor in Unix

Working with Vi editor in Unix

Vi is a very powerful text editor on Unix.

The below resources will help you when dealing with the vi editor in Unix. 

This article is intended to work as a basic starting point or something that you can use on a regular basis for the basic needs. In short, this is a vi survival toolkit.

Basic operation modes

1. Command mode to execute commands on the file with respect to its content.
    Pressing the Esc button will take you to the Command mode.
2. Insert mode to manipulate the text content within the file.
    Pressing the "Insert" key will take you to the insert mode.

Create or Opening a file

vi filename

It will create a file if does not exist, otherwise the file will be opened.

Adding or editing text content

As soon as you open a file in vi, you will be in command mode. To edit the content, press the "Insert" key. This will take you to the Insert mode. Add the content using the keyboard.


Exiting the vi editor

This is by far the task that makes many sweat.

1. When the file content is not changed

Make sure you are in command mode pressing Esc key

:q and press enter key (make a note of the colon)

2. when the file content is changed and you do not want it to be saved[Perhaps the one thing you always should know]

Make sure you are in command mode by pressing Esc key.

:q! and then press enter key

3. when you have changed the file content and it has to be saved

Make sure you are in command mode by pressing Esc key.

:wq and then press enter key


Additional options when dealing with the text content

For the activities like deleting a fill line, some characters, forward and backward string search, please use the below reference.

https://www.cs.colostate.edu/helpdocs/vi.html

Footnote : These are learnings from encounters in the day to day work and there is quite a lot to learn with respect to this tool.

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