How to delete selected text in the vi editor

Question

I am using PuTTY and the vi editor  If I select five lines using my mouse and I want to delete those lines  how can I do that   Also  how can I select the lines using my keyboard as I can in Windows where I press Shift and move the arrows to select the text  How can I do that in vi

User · Accepted Answer

I am using PuTTY and the vi editor  If I select five lines using my mouse and I want to delete those lines  how can I do that    Forget the mouse  To remove 5 lines  either    Go to the first line and type d5d  dd deletes one line  d5d deletes 5 lines   or  Type Shift-v to enter linewise selection mode  then move the cursor down using j  yes  use h  j  k and l to move left  down  up  right respectively  that s much more efficient than using the arrows  and type d to delete the selection       Also  how can I select the lines using my keyboard as I can in Windows where I press Shift and move the arrows to select the text  How can I do that in vi    As I said  either use Shift-v to enter linewise selection mode or v to enter characterwise selection mode or Ctrl-v to enter blockwise selection mode  Then move with h  j  k and l   I suggest spending some time with the Vim Tutor  run vimtutor  to get more familiar with Vim in a very didactic way   See also   This answer to What is your most productive shortcut with Vim   one of my favorite answers on SO   Efficient Editing With vim

User · Answer

If you want to remove all lines in a file from your current line number  use dG  it will delete all lines  shift g  mean end of file

User · Answer

Do it the vi way   To delete 5 lines press  5dd   5 delete     To select   actually copy them to the clipboard   you type  10yy   It is a bit hard to grasp  but very handy to learn when using those remote terminals  Be aware of the learning curves for some editors     source  calver at unix rulez org

User · Answer

Highlighting with your mouse only highlights characters on the terminal  VI doesn t really get this information  so you have to highlight differently   Press  v  to enter a select mode  and use arrow keys to move that around  To delete  press x  To select lines at a time  press shift v  To select blocks  try ctrl v  That s good for  say  inserting lots of comment lines in front of your code      I m OK with VI  but it took me a while to improve  My work mates recommended me this cheat sheet  I keep a printout on the wall for those odd moments when I forget something   Happy hacking

User · Answer

When using a terminal like PuTTY  usually mouse clicks and selections are not transmitted to the remote system  So  vi has no idea that you just selected some text   There are exceptions to this  but in general mouse actions aren t transmitted    To delete multiple lines in vi  use something like 5dd to delete 5 lines   If you re not using Vim  I would strongly recommend doing so  You can use visual selection  where you press V to start a visual block  move the cursor to the other end  and press d to delete  or any other editing command  such as y to copy

User · Answer

If you want to delete using line numbers you can use    startingline  last line d   Example    7 20 d   This example will delete line 7 to 20

[linux] How to delete selected text in the vi editor

See also

Examples related to linux

Examples related to text-editor

Examples related to vi