Linux with Operating System Concepts

Line Motions
W/B (forward /backward 1 word)
E/e (forward to end of word/punctuation)
w/b (forward/backward to next word word or to punctuation)
Word1 Word2
Word4.
Word3-is -hyphenated 
Page Motions
Control+u - back 1 screen
Control+b - back 1/2 screen
Control+f - forward 1 screen
Control+d - forward 1/2 screen
H - move cursor to top of screen
M - move cursor to middle of screen
L - move cursor to bottom of screen
FIGURE 5.1 
Cursor movements in vi.

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Linux Applications
◾
163
in, use dd. The commands 
dd
, 
dw,
and 
db
cut the items into a buffer. The command 
yy
copies the current line into a buffer. To retrieve the contents of the buffer, use 
p
or 
P
(put 
or paste) where 
p
pastes in a line immediately above the line of the cursor’s position and 
P
pastes in a line immediately after the line of the cursor’s position. The combination of 
dd
/
dw
/
db
and 
p
/
P
perform cut and paste while 
yy
and 
p
/
P
perform copy and paste. Another 
interesting command is 
xp
, which transposes the current and next character. In fact, it is 
a combination of the 
x
command to delete the current character and 
p
to insert the item 
in the buffer immediately after the current character. So, for instance, if you have abc and 
the cursor is under b, typing 
xp
deletes b and pastes it after c. The command 
J
joins the 
current line and the next line, thus removing the line break (\n) from the end of the cur-
rent line.
There are several different search options. The search allows you to input either a string 
or a single character to search for. In the case of a string, the string can be literal charac-
ters or a regular expression (we cover regular expressions in the next chapter). To search 
forward from the cursor on for 
string
, use 
/string <
enter
>
and to search backward, 
use 
?
string

. Once an instance of 
string
has been found, you can continue to 
the search using /
<
enter
>
or 
? 
<
enter
>
for additional forward or backward searches, 
respectively.
You can search for a single character but only on the current line. The commands are 
f
char
, 
F
char
, 
t
char
,
and 
T
char
where 
f
and 
t
search forward for the character 
char
, 
positioning the cursor on the character or immediately before the character, respectively, 
and 
F
and 
T
search backward on the line for the character 
char
, positioning the cursor on 
the character or immediately before the character, respectively. The command 
;
is used to 
repeat the last 
f
, 
F
, 
t
, or 
T
command. You can also search forward or backward in a docu-
ment for a parenthesis. If the cursor is resting on an open or close paren, the % key will 
move the cursor to the corresponding close or open paren. For instance, if you have “the 
value of x (heretofore unknown) is not a concern” and the cursor is on the ‘)’, pressing % 
will move it to the ‘(‘.
All file commands start with a 
:
and are followed by one or more characters to denote 
the command. To open the file