What is vim in linux

In Linux, vim is a text editor developed from vi. It has functions such as code completion, compilation, and error jumping. It can actively identify the correctness of the syntax with font color to facilitate code writing; vim can run on multiple operating platforms such as unix, windows, and mac.

#The operating environment of this tutorial: CentOS 6 system, Dell G3 computer.

Vim is a text editor developed from vi. It is particularly rich in functions that facilitate programming, such as code completion, compilation, and error jumping, and is widely used among programmers.

To put it simply, vi is an old-fashioned word processor, but its functions are already very complete, but there is still room for improvement. vim can be said to be a very useful tool for program developers.

Vim is not only compatible with all vi instructions, but also has some new features in it.

These advantages of vim are mainly reflected in the following aspects:

1. Multi-level undo

We know that in vi, pressing u only The last command can be undone, and in vim it can be undone without limit.

2. Ease of use

vi can only run on unix, while vim can not only run on unix, windows, mac and other operating platforms.

3. Syntax highlighting

vim can use different colors to highlight your code.

4. Visual operation

That is to say, vim can not only run in the terminal, but also in x window, mac os, and windows.

5. Full compatibility with vi

In some cases, you can use vim as vi.

Vi and vim are both editors in Linux. The difference is that vim is more advanced and can be regarded as an upgraded version of vi. vi is suitable for text editing, but vim is more suitable for coding.

Why use vim?

Although there are many text editors under Linux, these tools have their own advantages, but there are several points that other editing tools cannot match

• All Unix-like systems have built-in vi, other editing tools are not necessarily so, and vim is equivalent to an upgraded version of vi

• The editing interface of many software will call vi, as mentioned later The crontab, edquota, etc.

• vim has program editing capabilities, and can actively mark the correctness of the syntax with font color to facilitate code writing

• The program is simple and the editing speed is very fast

To sum up, this is an old-fashioned word processing tool, but it has complete functions. It is not only a text processing tool, but also a program editing tool. Even the official website says that vim is a program development tool rather than a word processing software, because it contains many additional functions, such as: multi-file editing, block copying, etc. These functions allow us to be more precise when modifying configuration files. convenient.

Precautions during use

Since some versions of Linux only install vi by default, you need to install additional vim software packages. We will explain how to install the software packages in As explained in subsequent courses, in addition, vim cannot input Chinese in the character interface, and whether you can input Chinese in the graphical interface depends on whether the Chinese input method is installed in the system.

• Character differences

Due to the system differences between Linux and Windows, they also have different representations of some special symbols in files, such as symbols used to represent line breaks, such as

[root@manage01 ~]# cat -A hello-linux.txt 
hello$
$
[root@manage01 ~]# cat -A hello-windows.txt 
hello^M$
^M$

If this kind of file is a novel copied from windows to linux, there is basically no problem, but if it is a shell script that we need to perform specified work, there will be problems, because linux does not understand the meaning of this symbol , which will cause the shell script to fail to execute. So at this time we have to process this kind of file

[root@manage01 ~]# unix2dos [-kn] file [newfile]

Options and parameters:

• -k: Keep the original mtime time format of the file

• -n: Keep the old file and output the converted content to the new file, such as: dos2unix -n old new

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