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Unix shell vi mode

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See also

Recommended  Links

Basic navigation Command Completion 

Shell History

Etc

Vi mode is a dinosaur, but still it's predominant mode used by in shell. I recommend to enable it in your profile if this was not done yet (unless you prefer Emacs mode). The simplest way to enable vi editing mode is to set the option explicitly with the set -o command:

$ set -o vi

Another way to enable vi command mode is to set global environment variable VISUAL  in your .profile or environment file:

VISUAL=$(whence vi)
export VISUAL

Here whence is a built-in command that takes the name of another command as its argument and returns the command's full pathname on the standard output; the form $(command) returns the standard output generated by command as a string value.  This trick make the assignment  portable.

There are two interesting, but often overlooked features of vi mode:

Basic navigation

The most important vi-mode commands are as follow:

h Move left one character l Move right one character w Move right one word b Move left one word W Move to beginning of next non-blank word B Move to beginning of preceding non-blank word e Move to end of current word E Move to end of current non-blank word 0 Move to beginning of line ^ Move to first non-blank character in line $ Move to end of line

Command

Function

Up

Move back one command in the history list.

Down

Move forward one command in the history list.

Left

Move back one character.

Right

Move forward one character.

Esc f

Move forward one word.

Esc b

Move back one word.

Ctrl-A

Move to beginning of line.

Ctrl-E

Move to end of line.

Ctrl-D

Delete current character.

Backspace

Delete previous character.

Esc d

Delete current word.

Ctrl-U

Delete from beginning of line.

Esc k

Delete to end of line.

Ctrl-Y

Retrieve last item deleted.

Esc .

Insert last word of previous command.

Ctrl-L

Clear the screen, placing the current line at the top of the screen.

Tab

Attempt to complete the current word, interpreting it as a filename, username, variable name, hostname, or command as determined by the context.

Esc ?

List the possible completions.

One of the most useful editing keystrokes, Tab, can also be used when typing a command. If you type the first part of a filename and press Tab, the shell will attempt to locate files with names matching the characters you've typed. If exactly one such file exists, the shell fills out the partially typed name with the proper characters. You can then press Enter to execute the command or continue typing other options and arguments. This feature, called either filename completion or command completion, makes the shell much easier to use.

In addition to keystrokes for editing the command line, the shell interprets several keystrokes that control the operation of the currently executing program.  For example, typing Ctrl-C generally cancels execution of a program. This keystroke command is handy, for example, when a program is taking too long to execute and you'd prefer to try something else.

Keystroke

Function

Ctrl-C

Sends an interrupt signal to the currently executing command, which generally responds by terminating itself.

Ctrl-D

Sends an end of file to the currently executing command. Use this keystroke to terminate console input.

Ctrl-Z

Suspends the currently executing program.

Several other special characters control the operation of the shell The # and ; characters are most often used in shell scripts, which you'll learn about later in this chapter. The & character is useful for running a command as a background process.

Character

Function

#

Marks the command as a comment, which the shell ignores.

;

Separates commands, letting you enter several commands on a single line.

&

Placed at the end of a command, causes the command to execute as a background process, so that a new shell prompt appears immediately after the command is entered.

Shell History

LUG@GT Using the Korn Shell

history [ -{num} | {num} {num} | {num} ]

That's limit list to num, display from num to num, and show commands starting from num.

r [ {num} | {string cmd starts with} ]

Recall a previous command by its history number or by typing in the first few characters of its name.



Etc

Society

Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers :   Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism  : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy

Quotes

War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda  : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotesSomerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose BierceBernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

Bulletin:

Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

History:

Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOSProgramming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC developmentScripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

Classic books:

The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-MonthHow to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater�s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

Most popular humor pages:

Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D


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Last modified: March 12, 2019