There's nothing that hard-core Unix and Linux users are more fanatical about than their text editor. Editors are the subject of adoration and worship, or of scorn and ridicule, depending upon whether the topic of discussion is your editor or someone else's. vi has been the standard editor for close to 30 years. Popular on Unix and Linux, it has a growing following on Windows systems, too. Most experienced system administrators cite vi as their tool of choice. And since 1986, this book has been the guide for vi. However, Unix systems are not what they were 30 years ago, and neither is this book. While retaining all the valuable features of previous editions, the 7th edition of Learning the vi and vim Editors has been expanded to include detailed information on vim, the leading vi clone. vim is the default version of vi on most Linux systems and on Mac OS X, and is available for many other operating systems too. With this guide, you learn text editing basics and advanced tools for both editors, such as multi-window editing, how to write both interactive macros and scripts to extend the editor, and power tools for programmers -- all in the easy-to-follow style that has made this book a classic. Learning the vi and vim Editors includes: A complete introduction to text editing with vi:

• How to move around vi in a hurry

• Beyond the basics, such as using buffers

• vi's global search and replacement

• Advanced editing, including customizing vi and executing Unix commands

• How to make full use of vim:

• Extended text objects and more powerful regular expressions

• Multi-window editing and powerful vim scripts

• How to make full use of the GUI version of vim, called gvim

• vim's enhancements for programmers, such as syntax highlighting, folding and extended tags

• Coverage of three other popular vi clones -- nvi, elvis, and vile -- is also included. You'll find several valuable appendixes, including an alphabetical quick reference to both vi and ex mode commands for regular vi and for vim, plus an updated appendix on vi and the Internet. Learning either vi or vim is required knowledge if you use Linux or Unix, and in either case, reading this book is essential. After reading this book, the choice of editor will be obvious for you too.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 6 Ratings

It's all about power and control - 2008-09-04
Reviewer Rating:
I read this with both joy and sadness. Joy because it's a great treatment of vi and its clones, but sadness because so few will appreciate it.

Nowadays it's mostly programmers who understand the value of a text editor as opposed to a word processor. For the rest of the world, any text editor is just a clumsy, difficult beast that seems to belong in another era. Ordinary computer users just don't grok text editors.

Yet I use vi every day. Yes, for writing programs and scripts, but also for creating HTML files and anything else I need to store away. Why I use it for HTML is obvious to any programmer: advanced editing is just as apt to be needed there as in program text. But again, the average person, even those who write raw HTML, just doesn't understand that.

They miss out on so much. Tasks that I can do in seconds, sometimes fractions of seconds, will have them bumbling along for minutes or worse. Sometimes their word processor or HTML editor can help them a little, but none of those tools have any fraction of the power that vi offers.

Even for "ordinary" files, lists, records and the like, I tend to use vi where most folks would automatically turn to a spreadsheet or database. I can easily import my raw data into those other tools if I need to, but it's much easier to work on the data in text form. Vi gives me the power to do mass changes that would always be clumsy in any other tool.

That's what it is about: power and control. Efficiency. Speed. If you understand even part of what I'm talking about, you'll want this book. As for the rest of you.. well, I feel sorry for you. You have no idea what you are missing.

Best vi Reference Around - 2008-10-23
Reviewer Rating:
'Learning the vi and Vim Editors' is the ultimate reference for using 'vi' out there on the market. Now in its 7th (yes SEVENTH) edition, this book has been around for 22 years and there is a reason. 450+ pages are spread over XX chapters:

01. Basics
02. Simpled Editing
03. Movement
04. Beyond the Basics
05. ex Editor
06. Global Replacement
07. Advanced Editing
08. vi Clones
09. Vim
10. Vim Improvements Over vi
11. Multiple Windows In Vim
12. Vim Scripts
13. Graphical Vim
14. Vim Enhancements
15. Other Cool Vim Stuff
16. nvi
17. Elvis
18. vile

If you are a Linux user or need vi on a daily basis you owe it to yourself to pick up this great book. It's a definitive resource and well worth the time and money.

***** RECOMMENDED

Best Vi/Vim Book on the Market - 2008-09-16
Reviewer Rating:
This new edition goes above and beyond of what's currently available in the area of Vi/Vim tutorials.

It is fascinating to watch how much time and typing a programmer can save every single day, once they've figured out how to use a tool like Vim efficiently. Many people just know 5% of what an editor is capable of, and day-in and day-out they're using way too many keystrokes. What a waste of time and what a strain on your hands!

"vi and vim" 7th edition (make sure to get the latest, not the previous one) explains how to make the most out of this editor. By the way, you should always use "vim", not the legacy "vi" editor, which is a waste of time as it lacks important features. Luckily "vim" is standard on many systems like Linux nowadays, and even if you type "vi" there, you'll get the better "vim" automatically.

Learning shortcuts for common editing tasks like block indentation, text formatting, or screen movement is essential for fast typing, and the challenge is to keep the shortcuts all memorized. Vim isn't your father's editor, it has literally thousands of keystroke combinations, and if you don't have a system to memorize them, you'll never use them. Luckily, "vi and vim" 7th edition explains them all in detail and in a way that makes it easier to recall them later when you need them.

The book gives mnemonics whenever possible and it explains concepts like vim's combination of action and move commands in a way that lets you understand the concept behind these commands instead of simply having to memorize nonsensical keystrokes.

There's some chapters which I consider fluff, but I guess there is people out there using odd vi incarnations like "elvis" or "gvim", so the authors felt like they were worth to be covered as well.

It would be great if the chapter on programming vim with its own scripting language (and possibly other languages like Perl) could be expanded and information on how to define complicated macros or write your own plugins would also be helpful. But I guess that's too much for a "Learning the vi and vim editors" book and maybe there's an upcoming "Mastering" book, who knows?

This book is a must-read for every programmer using the 'vi' line of editors. There's two other vim books out there, but they don't come even close in terms of depth and content structuring. Five stars for the 7th edition!

Updated and Improved Version of a Classic - 2008-08-20
Reviewer Rating:
Vi through the years has been the topic of many "geek debates." Maybe not quite as big as the "Windows - Mac arguments," but vi and its companion editor Emacs both have their fervent followings. I've been in the "Vi camp" for more years than I want to think about, but I still love it.

This latest edition not only describes Vi and the countless things it does in great detail as past editions have but also has an section of the book devoted to vim, a vi clone that not only emulates vi, but does much more. It was created by someone who grew tired of Vi's limitations and is available on virtually any platform. Reading the seven chapters devoted to vim enlightened me as to the countless things it can do in addition to what Vi could already do. One thing I noticed immediately was syntax based color coding of text, something that comes in handy when I edit php files. Other nifty features include GUI features, being able to write your own Vim extensions or downloading plugins online, extensive online help, extended, expression matching facilities, and a lot more.

Speaking of writing your own Vim extensions, one chapter in the Vim section explains how to write a sample Vim script, which I'm sure nonprogrammers like myself will find helpful. Another chapter touches on the graphical Vim (GVim), which can be used on Windows or Mac machines. With the graphical Vim, you can even customize your scrollbars, menus and toolbars. Fun stuff indeed.

Previous editions of this book were quite good. The addition of the Vim section in this latest edition has made this an even better book. To those of you who might look down on a "lowly" text editor, I suggest you give Vim a try.

Good Book - 2009-04-21
Reviewer Rating:
I found the book "Learning the vi and Vim Editors" to be a very thorough book in covering the foundations of these complex tools. Already being a pretty avid Vim user, I picked up this book as a reference to fill in any holes in my knowledge and to brush up on various configuration options for improving my Vim environment. I found the book to be exceptionally useful in terms of helping me configure my environment. I learned many different options from it that I wouldn't have known existed and it helped me improve my environment in ways I wouldn't have first thought of. The book itself did not help fill in many holes in my knowledge, though, because it tends to be primarily a book aimed at introducing the user to these editors. I think the issue that is the primary cause of this is that these two editors have enough features that it's difficult for anyone to know them all and to cover them effectively in one text while being aimed at beginners as well. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone just beginning to use vi or Vim and wanting to really hone their skills with these editors.

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