Command-Line Mode

This post extracts some knowledge from Practical Vim Chapter 5 – Command-Line Mode.

we could use an offset relative to the current line:

:2
:.,,+3p

The . symbol stands for the current line, so :.,.+3 is equivalent to :2,5 in this case.

:copy = :co = :t

As a mnemonic, you can think of it as copy TO.

:[range]normal [normal-action]

Use @: to repeat the last Ex command. After running @: for the first time, we can subsequently repeat it with the @@ command.

Just like in the shell, we can use the <Tab> key to autocomplete commands at the prompt. The <C-d> command asks Vim to reveal a list of possible completions.

At Vim’s command line, the <C-r><C-w> mapping copies the word under the cursor and inserts it at the command-line prompt.

let’s switch to Command-Line mode by pressing the : key. Leave the prompt empty; then press the <Up> arrow key.

If we press / to bring up the search prompt, we can also scroll backward and forward through previous searches with the <Up> and <Down> keys. The search prompt is, after all, just another form of Command-Line mode.

Press q: and meet the command-line window. The command-line window is like a regular Vim buffer, where each line contains an item from our history.

The beauty of the command-line window is that it allows us to change historical commands using the full modal editing power of Vim. Awesome!!!

When the command-line window is open, it always gets the focus.

Note that when we press <CR> in the command-line window, the command is executed in the context of the active window: that is, the window that was active before the command-line window was summoned. Vim doesn’t indicate which is the active window when the command-line window is open, so pay attention if you’re using split windows!

In Command-Line mode, we can use the <C-f> mapping to switch to the command-line window, preserving a copy of the command that was typed at the prompt.

This table summarizes a few of the methods for summoning the command-line window:

From Vim’s Command-Line mode, we can invoke external programs in the shell by prefixing them with a bang symbol.

In that case, we can use Vim’s :shell command to start an interactive shell session.

The Ctrl + z and fg commands are quicker and easier to use than Vim’s equivalent :shell and exit commands.

We can use the :read !{cmd} command, which puts the output from the {cmd} into our current buffer.

The bang symbol can take on different meanings depending on where it is placed within the command line. Compare these commands:

:write !sh
:write ! sh
:write! sh

The first two commands pass the contents of the buffer as standard input to the external sh command. The last command writes the contents of the buffer to a file called sh by calling the :write! command.

This table summarizes a selection of the most useful methods for calling external commands:

Write Ex Commands to a Script and Source It.

vim vimcasts/episodes-1.html

:source batch.vim

Source the Script to Change Multiple Files.

We could step through those files one by one, sourcing our batch.vim for each one:

vim vimcasts/*.html

:args
[vimcasts/episodes-1.html] vimcasts/episodes-2.html vimcasts/episodes-3.html
:first
:source batch.vim
:next
:source batch.vim

:argdo source batch.vim

With a single command we’ve executed each of the Ex commands in batch.vim across each of the files in the argument list.