For many users, working in the Unix environment means using vi, a full-screen text editor available on most Unix systems. Even those who know vi often make use of only a small number of its features. Learning the vi Editor is a complete guide to text editing with vi. Topics new to the sixth edition include multiscreen editing and coverage of four viclones: vim, elvis, nvi, and vile and their enhancements to vi, such as multi-window editing, GUI interfaces, extended regular expressions, and enhancements for programmers. A new appendix describes vi's place in the Unix and Internet cultures. Quickly learn the basics of editing, cursor movement, and global search and replacement. Then take advantage of the more subtle power of vi. Extend your editing skills by learning to use ex, a powerful line editor, from within vi. For easy reference, the sixth edition also includes a command summary at the end of each appropriate chapter. Topics covered include:

• Basic editing

• Moving around in a hurry

• Beyond the basics

• Greater power with ex

• Global search and replacement

• Customizing vi and ex

• Command shortcuts

• Introduction to the vi clones' extensions

• The nvi, elvis, vim, and vile editors

• Quick reference to vi and ex commands

• vi and the Internet

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 43 Ratings

Beginner to Advanced, Comprehensive Guide to Reference - 2005-09-29
Reviewer Rating:
This book is well written and laid out. Whether or not you are a beginner or advanced user coming to vi, this is a valuable tool for getting the most out of vi.

vi is by no means an easy or intuitive editor, but with a little practice, it can greatly improve your efficiency. The book does a great job of taking you through a logical progression of how to start using the product.

Also, the support for the derivatives of vi is a huge plus. The vim chapter is excellent and I learned several tips and trick that I now use on a daily basis.

As usual, O'Reilly hits another one out of the park.

Still reads like a first edition - 2007-08-23
Reviewer Rating:
Although this is the 6th edition of this book, while I was reading it, I still felt like I was reading the first edition, due to the clunky prose and the treatment of the material.

I know the authors feel compelled to write a book that describes the features of vi that are common on all platforms, but they end up producing a manual that appeals to the lowest common denominator. If you are still editing files on an old Unix machine using minicom and a dial-up link, this book is just right for you. If you are a modern vi user, trying to edit a large Linux project and need to learn some of the more powerful features of vim, you may be better off asking the office vi guru.

The community at large would be better served by a book dedicated to vim that does not have the problems of "Vi iMproved (VIM)" by Steve Oualline.

A great book about a great text editor - 2007-06-22
Reviewer Rating:
This book is a fine exposition of the vi editor with a perfect balance between density of information and friendliness of explanation.

The material is divided in two parts:
* Presentation of the vi proper.
* Presentation of the vi clones.

The value of the book resides in the first part (7 chapters). It explains vi so well that it is hard not to understand and like this well-designed editor.

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Vi is an editor of many qualities: portability, price ($0!) and speed. When it comes to speed, file loading is quick, saving is quick, searching is quick, scrolling is quick - everything is quick with this guy!

Everything but... learning. The vi editor has had a bad reputation as being hard to learn and master. The modal behavior scares most people away and the wide range of commands may seem like hard to conquer. This could have been the situation *before* the amazing "Learning the vi Editor" by Lamb & Robbins existed - but now, when the book reaches the 6th edition, there's no excuse.

As "Learning the vi Editor" nicely explains, vi is a layer on top of the ex editor. Ex is a so-called "line-editor", used to edit files in a line-oriented manner. The two modes of vi are nothing else than an expression of this duality. In the so-called 'edit mode', ex is in control. In the so-called 'command mode', vi-proper is in control while redirecting the ':' commands to the underlying ex. Simple, isn't it?

The book exposes this philosophy behind vi with clarity, rigor and friendliness. Once you read this book you realize that, in fact, vi is a simple and perfectly logical editor. It has simple command sintax, simple command semantics and simple command composition rules.

************************************************************

All this information - and much more - can be found in the first part of "Learning the vi Editor". The second part is dedicated to various vi clones. Here the reader has the liberty to choose depending on which clone he/she feels most comfortable with.

Books which remove confusion and bring light to seemingly arcane areas are rare. "Learning the vi Editor" by Lamb & Robbins is one of them.

The best book for properly learning the vi editor - 2007-02-16
Reviewer Rating:
If your operating system is down, you don't have access to the "fancier" editors available that actually have interfaces that make sense to normal people. At this moment, particularly if you are in a system administrator position, you must know vi in order to access and modify files. It is so easy to pick up vi the wrong way - usually by word of mouth from someone who has learned vi the wrong way too. This book is the best I've found that is dedicated to properly teaching you the features of the vi editor and how to use them. O'Reilly has experimented with several book formats over the last ten years. This book is what I like to call "classic O'Reilly". It is the same format that most of their other books on Unix tools are generally written in, and if you have their books on sed and awk or Unix Power Tools, you know what I'm talking about.

If you have learned the wrong way, or if you are a bonified beginner, start at the beginning of part one. Don't skip anything. Even if you think you already know something, at least read through the section to make sure you know the best way of doing it. By the end of the first seven chapters you should be a pretty skilled user of vi. The book makes frequent use of practice exercises, answers common questions, and gives advice on what to do when you encounter common problems. By the time you finish you'll even be writing ex scripts and modifying C/C++ code in the vi editor without accidentally inserting all kinds of control characters that will drive programmers crazy once "the real editor" is back on line.

Part two starts at chapter eight and concerns itself with all of the various extensions to vi that are available via the four most popular vi clones available when this book was published. You do get some enhancements such as multi-window editing and even GUI interfaces by using them, but the cost is an increase in the confusion factor that this book tries to clear up as much as possible. If you are not planning on using a vi clone, you may want to just file this section of the book away in case the subject ever comes up.

Part 3 consists of several useful appendices. Four of the appendices are still useful, but the fifth, on vi and the Internet, is a bit dated. I highly recommend this book if the vi editor is in your future, and if you have system administrator duties, believe me it is. You might also want to invest in the very handy "vi Editor Pocket Reference" by the same author. I have mixed feelings about that one. Everything is there in a concise format, but until you get used to it, information can be hard to find.

A must buy if you want to master vi - 2007-08-19
Reviewer Rating:
I have been using vi/vim for about six years, but had never gotten to the next level. This was mainly because I had kept my usage limited to a small subset of vi (which is even smaller for vim). And it's not just me - I have seen many people who use vi this way. The other reason is the fact that vi has a steep learning curve. And even when you learn something new, you have to use it often, as otherwise there is a good chance that you will forget it. I knew how powerful vi can be as a text editor, but somehow never used it to its full potential. Sometimes I used to search on the internet for vi/vim tips and stuff, and finally realized that all this learning will be much more effective if I have a book that has all the information in one place. I guess most people will think twice before buying a book on a text editor (at least, I did), whereas they won't hesitate if it was a book on a programming language. But an editor like vi, which is quite difficult to master, does need a book. Once you learn it, you will be amazed to see how powerful it is.

About the book, it is perhaps the best resource for someone at the beginner/intermediate level to learn about vi. There are not many books around on the subject, but this book does a great job. It is divided into two parts. The first part teaches vi and the second part talks about a few vi clones (including vim). The book (especially the first part) is organized in a very nice way. Things are presented in a certain order. Each chapter/section builds on the previous chapter/section. The second part deals with different clones of vi, like nvi, elvis, vim and vile. Of these, I use only vim, which is basically is superset of vi. The chapter on vim does a good job of discussing the essential features of vim in some details, although its not complete by any means. With vim having such a huge number of features, it demands a separate book for itself.

All in all, this is a great book. It is a worthwhile investment to make. You will end up doing things in minimum time and with just a few keystrokes. As another reviewer has said, vi is addicting. Use it and you will see for yourself!

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