If you forget to specify a file then there is a way to open a file within vi but it is easiest to just quit vi and have another go. When we run vi we normally issue it with a single command line argument which is the file you would like to edit. If you do either of these it is generally easy to recover so don't worry too much. A common mistake is to start entering commands without first going back into edit mode or to start typing input without first going into insert mode. In edit mode you can move around the file, perform actions such as deleting, copying, search and replace, saving etc. In input mode you may input or enter content into the file. Everything in Vi is done via the keyboard. It does, however have a lot more power compared to Notepad or Textedit.Īs a result you have to ditch the mouse. Vi is intended as a plain text editor (similar to Notepad on Windows, or Textedit on Mac) as opposed to a word processing suite such as Word or Pages. Vi has been designed to work within these limitations and many would argue, is actually quite powerful as a result. It's a single window with text input and output only. As you would be quite aware now, the command line is quite a different environment to your GUI. I highly recommend you look into a few of them. At the end of the section I'll provide some links to resources where you can learn Vi further. In this section my aim is not to cover everything that Vi can do but to get you up and running with the basics. I've chosen to look at Vi first so that your mind has a bit of time to process and make sense of it in preparation for later when we'll need it. This section and the next few sections are actually forming the foundation for the last few sections where we will put them all together and start doing some really funky stuff. It's kinda like touch typing, initially learning is awkward and you wonder why you're bothering but once you get the hang of it you will not want to go back.Įven if you don't use Vi all the time you will definitely find that work patterns you develop in learning the editor can be transferred easily to other programs and to great effect. It will take a while to get your head around but once you do you will realise it is actually quite powerful. Vi is a text editor that is most likely very different to any editor you have used before.
In this section we'll look at a tool to put content into files and edit that content as well. A little boring but we have to start somewhere. In the last section we created a few files but they were blank.
Best command line text editor linux how to#
Master the Vi text editor and learn how to make complex edits on your files with less time and effort.
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