More Ways to Insert Text
You have inserted text before the cursor with the sequence:
itext to be inserted
ESC
You’ve also inserted text after the cursor with the a
command. Here are some other insert
commands for inserting text at different positions relative to the
cursor:
A
Append text to end of current line.
I
Insert text at beginning of line.
o
(lowercase letter “o”)Open blank line below cursor for text.
O
(uppercase letter “o”)Open blank line above cursor for text.
s
Delete character at cursor and substitute text.
S
Delete line and substitute text.
R
Overstrike existing characters with new characters.
All of these commands place you in insert mode. After inserting text, remember to press ESC to return to command mode.
A
(append) and
I
(insert) save you from having to
move your cursor to the end or beginning of the line before invoking
insert mode. (The A
command saves
one keystroke over $a
. Although one
keystroke might not seem like much of a saving, the more adept—and
impatient—an editor you become, the more keystrokes you will want to
omit.)
o
and O
(open) save you from having to insert a
carriage return. You can type these commands from anywhere within the
line.
s
and S
(substitute) allow you to delete a
character or a whole line and replace the deletion with any amount of
new text. s
is the equivalent of
the two-stroke command c
SPACE, and S
is the same as cc
. One of the best uses for s
is to change one character to several
characters.
R
(“large” replace) is useful when you want to start ...
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