1. Program Development with Vim

2. Brief History ed – original (line-oriented) editor of Unix
ex – superset of ed commands (Joy)
vi – visual (full screen) interface for ex (Joy)
circa 1976
vim – Vi improved

3. Why Use vi/Vim? Part of the standard Unix distribution
Always there
Available on just about all other platforms
Powerful
Programmable/configurable
Free

4. Why Use vi/Vim? It’s a programmer’s editor
For programmers, by programmers
Lets you think like a programmer

5. Some Philosophy Modal editor
insert: typed text becomes part of document
normal: typed chars are editing commands
Occasionally called command mode (ugh)
Allows user to edit without removing hands from the keyboard’s home row
- feature? unintended consequence of ‘dumb terminal’ keyboard?

6. Some More Philosophy
As a programmer’s editor, orthogonality plays a big role in the design
Combining two features usually works…
… and works the way you’d expect it to

7. A Suggestion Toss out the GUI Toss out the mouse Toss out the toolbar
Toss out the menu bar

8. Before Anything Else… Help
:help – enters the help system
:help <topic> - positions the help system at the topic
It’s not always that simple– read the beginning of the help pages
The help system is a text document
And can thus be somewhat navigated using vim

9. Before There was Hypertext
… there was the vi help system (I think)
Positioning the cursor over a highlighted topic and pressing <Ctl-]> takes you to the topic
<Ctl-O> / <Ctl-T> takes you back

10. And Then There’s Vimtutor
Go to the installation directory and run vimtutor.bat

11. Normal Mode Movement h, j, k, l – left, down, up, right
0, ^, $ - beginning, 1st nonblank, end of line
w – forward one word
b – backward one word
<n>G – go to line n
G – go to last line
gg – go to first line
<Ctl-F>, <Ctl-B> - forward back one page

12. Search within Line f<c> – forward (on)to character c
F<c> – backward (on)to character c
t<c> – forward (up) to character c
T<c> – backward (up) to character c

14. Other Normal Mode Commands
i, a – enter insert mode (insert/append)
exit via <Esc>
x – delete char
r – replace char
w – write file
ZZ – write file and quit vi

15. Adding Count <n><command> - perform command n times 10x 5w
10j

16. Movement-Based Commands
d – delete text of movement
dw – delete word
dt) – delete text until )
c – change text of movement (insert mode)
cw – change word
y – yank (copy) text of movement
y$ – yank to end of line

17. The General Form <n><action><n><movement> 10dw
c2w
2cw

18. Doubles and Caps
Doubling action’s character often makes it operate on the entire line
dd, yy
Capitalizing action often goes to end of line (or some other ‘enhanced’ action)
C, D
R – replace multiple chars (enters insert mode)
Y – delete to end of line

19. Repeating Commands
. (period) - repeats the last command performed in normal mode.
I use it for inserting HTML tags in my lecture notes
i<code><Esc>
Then I move to the next spot and press .
… and so on

20. Marking Locations m<letter> - Marking a location
'<letter> (single quote) - go to the beginning of the line of marked location
`<letter> (backtick) - go to line and column of marked location
Uppercase letter marks work between files

21. Searching /<pattern>/ Wraps around at end/beginning of file
/main/
Will incrementally search as pattern is typed
?<pattern? - searches backwards
//, ?? - repeats search
Wraps around at end/beginning of file

22. Command (Line) Mode
Commands requiring more user input than a couple of characters
Commands operating on multiple lines
Entered by typing :
Subsequent entry occurs on bottom line
General form:
<line range><action>…
Line range is of form <start>,<end>

23. Some Commands wq – write and quit (like ZZ) :<n> - go to line n
:<range>d – delete range of lines
:10,20d
:<range>s/<patt>/<replacement>/gc
:5,10s/hello/goodbye/
Can use ‘any’ character as delimiter
wq – write and quit (like ZZ)

24. Line Specifications Line # Symbolic Expression Search Marks ., $, %
.+1, $-2
Search
/main/
Marks 'a

25. Not Everyone Can Be Perfect
u – undo
<Ctl>-R – redo

26. Repeating Commands Cursor keys work in command line mode
There’s also a command line history you can search and edit
For another day

27. Seeing is Believing – Visual Mode
Highlights selected text
From normal mode
v – plain visual mode
Highlights on a character basis
<Shift-V> - linewise visual mode
Highlights on a line basis
<Ctl-V> - block visual mode
Highlights on a column (rectangular) basic

28. Reg\(ular \)\?Ex\(pression\)\? /Search\(ing\|es\)/
Provides search pattern based on regular expressions
Added bonus: you get to learn regex’s

29. Regular Expressions Patterns used for search (and replacement)
Uses metacharacters for pattern specification
Perl is the standard these days
Vim’ is similar but not identical
Filename wildcards on LSD

30. Basic categories . (period) – any character except newline
\s – any whitespace character
\d – digit
\a, \l, \u – alpha, lowercase, uppercase
Uppercase flips parity
\S – non-whitespace
\D – non-digit

31. Anchors
^, $ - beginning / end of line
\<, \> - word boundaries

32. Character Ranges [aeiou] – matches any of the specified characters
[0-9] – matches any character from 0 through 9 (in the underlying character set)
Above two canbe combined
[A-Za-z0-9_]
[^A-Z] – matches any character except A through Z

33. Grouping \(, \) Used for any precedence issues
But more importantly allow subsequent retrieval of matched text (during replacement)
These are called backreferences

34. Alternation <pattern1> \| <pattern2>
Matches pattern1 OR pattern2
\(int | double\)

35. Replacement Has its own set of meta-characters to allow retrieval
&, \0 – all the text that matched the pattern
\1, \2, … - the text of the n’th matched group

36. Buffers – Multiple Files
:set hidden – allows you to move freely between buffers
:e <file> - brings a new file into the editor
Placed into its own buffer
:buffers – displays info about the buffers
:b<n> - edits buffer n

37. Multiple Windows :split – horizontal window split
:vsplit – vertical window split
<Ctl-W><action> performs window-related action
h, j, k, l – moves to window in that direction
There are resizing, and moving actions as well
:q (ZZ) closes window

38. Programming Aids Vim can just about be transformed into a full IDE
We’ll look at a few simple features
Indentation
Delimiter matching/navigating
Running commands from within the editor
Navigating compilation errors

39. Fixing Indentation
<<, >> (normal mode) – shift one tab position to the left/right
Don’t forget about .
<, > does same in command mode
:4,20>
= – indent
Works with motion
=10
=/void/

40. Indenting as You Code :set cindent :set smartindent :set autoindent
Follows C/C++/Java ‘standard’ rules
:set smartindent
Indents after {; unindents after ‘}’
:set autoindent
Indents to same level as previous line

41. Autocompletion
<Ctl-N>, <Ctl-P> - next/previous word matching the prefix under the cursor
:set complete option controls where to search for words
Dictionaries can be also be loaded and used for non-code files
Commands are slightly different
Spell checking is available as well

42. Running Commands :!<command> - runs command in a shell
:sh – enters a shell
exiting the shell (e.g. <Ctl-D> or <Ctl-Z>) returns you to the editor
In particular:
:!g++ *.cpp
:!a.out

43. Navigating Compiler Errors
Compile your code, redirecting errors to a file
:!g++ *.cpp 2>errors
Inform Vim of the existence of the error file
:!cfile errors
:set errorfile=errors sets the file as the default error file
Then just have to write :!cfile

44. Navigating Compiler Errors (cont’d)
Navigate through the errors with
:cc - display current error
:cc<n> - display error n
:cn – next error
:cp – previous error
:clist – list all errors

45. Tips Don’t try to master it all at once Try to add one feature a week
If you ‘discover’ a new feature, try to use it often
Google, google, google

46. A Most Important Tip Learn to touch type!!!
In case you didn’t hear me—