Vi(1) Tips,: Essential Vi/Vim Editor Skills [Paperback]

Jacek Artymiak (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 18, 2008

A handy book of tips for all users of the OpenBSD command-line environment from the author of "Building Firewalls with OpenBSD and PF" and "The OpenBSD Command-Line Companion for System Administrators."

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jacek Artymiak has written over 100 articles and over 20 books on Drupal, Google Docs, Linux, OpenBSD, OpenOffice.org. His books on OpenBSD have sold in over 25,000 copies worldwide.

Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: devGuide.net (October 18, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 8360869006
• ISBN-13: 978-8360869000
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,710,100 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jacek Artymiak has written more than 100 articles and more than a dozen books on Linux, OpenBSD, OpenOffice.org, Open Source, firewalls, networking, security, and system administration.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars VI .101 [ The point is intented. meant to convey 101/1000 - 1/1000th of depth of a 101 level course] ], June 25, 2010

By 

Harsha Ramanagoudra "simply think" (Bangalore, India) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Vi(1) Tips,: Essential Vi/Vim Editor Skills (Paperback)

Its a very basic introduction to vim. It can be termed .101 [the dot intended]. Please dont waste money on this.

You can learn a lot more by browsing tips at [...], and a little patience.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Learning vi/vim is Easy?, November 15, 2008

By 

KN (Michigan United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vi(1) Tips,: Essential Vi/Vim Editor Skills (Paperback)

This book is aimed clearly at Unix system administrators and users of Unix or Unix-like systems who desire an editor that is available every where they work. The book is thus somewhat Unix-centric, but should be useful to learning vi/vim on other operating systems such as Windows and Mac OS-X.

While vi is reviled by many for being difficult to learn, this book shows that vi is easier to learn than it would initially appear, especially as it does not use old, confusing terminology.

The first chapter of the book, appropriately enough for the vi editor, deals with how to get out of those panic situations you find yourself in when you first start using vi. It is not until the second chapter that we actually see how to start vi from the command line.

This may sound backwards, but in my experience it is very close to the usual method of learning vi: I need an editor. What is vi? Let me run it on my dissertation file and see. Ahhh! How do I get out of it?

At this point, most people run screaming from the room and never try vi again. This is unfortunate because vi is extremely useful and works well with Unix and with other operating systems. If you wanted one editor you could use on every server and operating system you use in your daily work, vi (and vim) would be one of a very few you could count on to be there or be available to install.

Had I known, when I started with vi, that there was a way to abandon changes and a way to recover my original file (that I had not yet saved), I would have been a lot less apprehensive when using the editor. It is very good to remember how to deal with those panic situations first, and this book emphasizes this.

The bulk of the book, as you would expect, is given to File Operations, Cursor Movement, and Editing. The book combines a short paragraph explanation of a task, such as replacing a line, with overlapping screen shots to show before, during, and after views of the editing operation, followed by a numbered, step-by-step command list that does the operation with vi/vim.

The use of illustrations is very helpful because it is not always clear what will happen on the screen when you type vi commands. This is much less confusing than learning by guessing what commands may do and seeing what happens when you use them.

The book also covers intermediate usage of vi, such as using registers and regular expressions, so is useful for more than just getting started. Even so, this book is not intended to show every possible way to use vi since it is focused on getting the user started quickly and building a useful level of productivity.

The book concludes with a small chapter of Tricks such as running external commands, getting command line shell access while in vi, and using job control to "background" vi. There is a short index, as well.

If you want to get up to speed quickly on vi/vim, this is an excellent guide to doing so. There are plenty of intermediate topics to make the book more useful beyond the first few days of vi usage.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great short book on vi, July 15, 2009

By 

Richard Bejtlich "TaoSecurity" (Metro Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Vi(1) Tips,: Essential Vi/Vim Editor Skills (Paperback)

I agree with just about everything that appeared in [...] review. Jacek Artymiak has written a sort of "vi(1) for the Desperate" covering all of the aspects of vi I would like to see addressed. I could see this book used in an introductory Unix class where the students are expected to try all of the examples. Jacek posted the sample files used in the book examples at [...], so you can easily follow along.

I have one minor point that might help vi users. On p 13 Jacek discusses Switching Between Files. This vi feature is helpful when a user opens several files for editing. Users can easily move forward through a list of files using the :n command. However, the Ctrl+^ command only returns to the last file viewed. If you have three files open, for example, and you move from 1 to 2 to 3, you won't be able to return to file 1 by using Ctrl+^. However, you can invoke the :e filename command, e.g., ,:e 1, to return to file 1. I couldn't find a way to cycle back through a list of files, as you could go forward with :n. I'd like to see a future printing make this situation clear.

Anyone who uses Unix should understand vi, so I recommend this book as a resource for those who like to learn by reading a printed book and following exercises supported by example files.