Vim
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Vim is a terminal text editor. It is an extended version of vi with additional features, including syntax highlighting, a comprehensive help system, native scripting (vimscript), a visual mode for text selection, and comparison of files (vimdiff).
Contents
Installation
Install one of the following packages:
- vim — with Python 2/3, Lua, Ruby and Perl interpreters support but without GTK/X support.
- gvim — which also provides the same as the above
vim
package with GTK/X support.
Usage
For a basic overview on how to use Vim, follow the vim tutorial by running either vimtutor (for the terminal version) or gvimtutor (for the graphical version).
Vim includes a broad help system that can be accessed with the :h subject
command. Subjects include commands, configuration options, key bindings, plugins etc. Use the :h
command (without any subject) for information about the help system and jumping between subjects.
Configuration
Vim's user-specific configuration file is located in the home directory: ~/.vimrc
, and Vim files of current user are located inside ~/.vim/
. The global configuration file is located at /etc/vimrc
. Global Vim files are located inside /usr/share/vim/
.
Clipboard
Vim commands such as :yank
or :paste
operate with the unnamed register, which by default corresponds to the "*
register. If the +clipboard
feature is available, the "*
register is reflected to the PRIMARY
buffer in X.
To change the default register, you can :set clipboard=unnamedplus
to use the "+
register instead. The "+
register corresponds to the CLIPBOARD
buffer in X.
For more information, see :help 'clipboard'
.
Syntax highlighting
To enable syntax highlighting (Vim supports a huge list of programming languages):
:filetype plugin on :syntax on
Visual wrapping
The wrap
option is on by default, which instructs Vim to wrap lines longer than the width of the window, so that the rest of the line is displayed on the next line. The wrap
option only affects how text is displayed, the text itself is not modified.
The wrapping normally occurs after the last character that fits the window, even when it is in the middle of a word. More intelligent wrapping can be controlled with the linebreak
option. When it is enabled with set linebreak
, the wrapping occurs after characters listed in the breakat
string option, which by default contains a space and some punctuation marks (see :help breakat
).
Wrapped lines are normally displayed at the beginning of the next line, regardless of any indentation. The breakindent option instructs Vim to take indentation into account when wrapping long lines, so that the wrapped lines keep the same indentation of the previously displayed line. The behaviour of breakindent
can be fine-tuned with the breakindentopt
option, for example to shift the wrapped line another four spaces to the right for Python files (see :help breakindentopt
for details):
autocmd FileType python set breakindentopt=shift:4
Using the mouse
Vim has the ability to make use of the mouse, but it only works for certain terminals: on Linux it is xterm-based terminals and Linux console with gpm (see Console mouse support for details), and also PuTTY.
To enable this feature, add this line into ~/.vimrc
:
set mouse=a
The mouse=a
option is set in defaults.vim
, which is sourced if there is no ~/.vimrc
.
Traverse line breaks with arrow keys
By default, pressing ←
at the beginning of a line, or pressing →
at the end of a line, will not let the cursor traverse to the previous, or following, line.
The default behavior can be changed by adding set whichwrap=b,s,<,>,[,]
to your ~/.vimrc
file.
Merging files
Vim includes a diff editor (a program that shows differences between two or more files and aids to conveniently merge them). Use vimdiff to run the diff editor — just specify some couple of files to it: vimdiff file1 file2
. Here is the list of vimdiff-specific commands.
Action | Shortcut |
---|---|
next change | ]c
|
previous change | [c
|
diff obtain | do
|
diff put | dp
|
fold open | zo
|
fold close | zc
|
rescan files | :diffupdate
|
Tips and tricks
Line numbers
To show the line number column, use :set number
. By default absolute line numbers are shown, relative numbers can be enabled with :set relativenumber
.
Jumping to a specific line is possible with :line number
or line numbergg
. Jumps are remembered in a jump list, see :h jump-motions
for details.
Spell checking
Vim has the ability to do spell checking, enable by entering:
set spell
By default, only English language dictionaries are installed. More dictionaries can be found in the official repositories by searching for vim-spell
. Additional dictionaries can be found in the Vim's FTP archive. Additional dictionaries can be put in the folder ~/.vim/spell/
and enabled with the command: :setlocal spell spelllang=en_us
(replacing the en_us
with the name of the needed dictionary).
Action | Shortcut |
---|---|
next spelling | ]s
|
previous spelling | [s
|
spelling suggestions | z=
|
spelling good, add | zg
|
spelling good, session | zG
|
spelling wrong, add | zw
|
spelling wrong, session | zW
|
spelling repeat all in file | :spellr
|
Save cursor position
If you want the cursor to appear in its previous position after you open a file, add the following to your ~/.vimrc
:
augroup resCur autocmd! autocmd BufReadPost * call setpos(".", getpos("'\"")) augroup END
Replace vi command with Vim
Create an alias for vi
to vim
.
Alternatively, if you want to be able to type sudo vi
and get vim
, install vi-vim-symlinkAUR which will remove vi
and replace it with a symlink to vim
.
DOS/Windows carriage returns
If there is a ^M
at the end of each line then this means you are editing a text file which was created in MS-DOS or Windows. This is because in Linux only a single line feed character (LF) used for line break, but in Windows/MS DOS systems they are using a sequence of a carriage return (CR) and a line feed (LF) for the same. And this carriage returns are displayed as ^M
.
To remove all carriage returns from a file do:
:%s/^M//g
Note that there ^
is a control letter. To enter the control sequence ^M
press Ctrl+v,Ctrl+m
.
Alternatively install the package dos2unix and run dos2unix file
to fix the file.
Empty space at the bottom of gVim windows
When using a window manager configured to ignore window size hints, gVim will fill the non-functional area with the GTK theme background color.
The solution is to adjust how much space gVim reserves at the bottom of the window. Put the following line in ~/.vimrc
:
set guiheadroom=0
Plugins
Adding plugins to Vim can increase your productivity. Plugins can alter Vim's UI, add new commands, code completion support, integrate other programs and utilities with Vim, add support for additional languages and more.
Installation
Using a plugin manager
A plugin manager allows to install and manage Vim plugins in a similar way independently on which platform you are running Vim. It is a plugin that acts as a package manager for other Vim plugins.
- Vundle is currently the most popular plugin manager for Vim.
- Vim-plug is a minimalist Vim plugin manager with many features like on-demand plugin loading and parallel updating.
- pathogen.vim is a simple plugin for managing Vim's runtimepath.
- Dein.vim is a plugin manager replacing NeoBundle, available as vim-dein-gitAUR.
From Arch repositories
The vim-plugins group provides many various plugins. Use pacman -Sg vim-plugins
command to list available packages which you can then install with pacman.
cscope
Cscope is a tool for browsing a project. By navigating to a word/symbol/function and calling cscope (usually with shortcut keys) it can find: functions calling the function, the function definition, and more.
Copy the cscope default file where it will be automatically read by Vim:
mkdir -p ~/.vim/plugin wget -P ~/.vim/plugin http://cscope.sourceforge.net/cscope_maps.vim
Create a file which contains the list of files you wish cscope to index (cscope can handle many languages but this example finds .c, .cpp and .h files, specific for C/C++ project):
cd /path/to/project/dir find . -type f -print | grep -E '\.(c(pp)?|h)$' > cscope.files
Create database files that cscope will read:
cscope -bq
Default keyboard shortcuts:
Ctrl-\ and c: Find functions calling this function d: Find functions called by this function e: Find this egrep pattern f: Find this file g: Find this definition i: Find files #including this file s: Find this C symbol t: Find assignments to
Feel free to change the shortcuts.
#Maps ctrl-c to find functions calling the function nnoremap <C-c> :cs find c <C-R>=expand("<cword>")<CR><CR>
Taglist
Taglist provides an overview of the structure of source code files and allows you to efficiently browse through source code files in different programming languages.
Install the vim-taglist package.
Useful options to be put in ~/.vimrc
:
let Tlist_Compact_Format = 1 let Tlist_GainFocus_On_ToggleOpen = 1 let Tlist_Close_On_Select = 1 nnoremap <C-l> :TlistToggle<CR>
See also
Official
Tutorials
- vim Tutorial and Primer
- vi Tutorial and Reference Guide
- Graphical vi-Vim Cheat Sheet and Tutorial
- Vim Introduction and Tutorial
- Open Vim — collection of Vim learning tools
- Learn Vim Progressively
- Learning Vim in 2014
- Seven habits of effective text editing
- Basic Vim Tips
- HOWTO Vim
Videos
- Vimcasts — screencasts in .ogg format.
- Vim Tutorial Videos — covering the basics up to advanced topics.
Games
Configuration
- nion's
- A detailed configuration from Amir Salihefendic
- Bart Trojanowski
- Steve Francia'http://vimawesome.com/s Vim Distribution
- W4RH4WK's Vim configuration
- Fast vimrc/colorscheme from askapache
- Basic vimrc
- Usevim