Practical UNIX

Chapter 21. Letting the vi Editor Work for You

Steve “Mor” Moritsugu

How to zip through repetitive editing How to map a sequence of vi commands to one key Mapping J to prevent accidents Conditional text substitution, global and partial Cut, copy, and paste between files vi special editing modes Harnessing other UNIX commands in your vi editing

Tip for Beginners Many UNIX experts do not like the vi editor, so UNIX provides a number of standard and downloadable alternatives. If you do use vi, hopefully you will learn the basic vi commands in Chapter 20, “Using vi to Edit a Text File,” well enough to tackle this chapter, which covers what makes vi worth all the hassle. In this chapter, you will see how all the various vi commands can be used ...