Moving the cursor

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  • Essential Linux
    • The vi Editor
      • Moving the cursor

As well as using the keys h,j,k, and l to move the cursor left, down, up, and right respectively, must terminals let you use the arrow keys to perform the same function.

Another useful cursor moving command is G, which functions as a goto command. For example, to go to line 256 of a file you would type 256G and the cursor would move to that line. To find out your current line number at any time, you can press CTRL-G in command mode and to display the line numbers along the left margin of your file, you can type

:set number

$

Moves the cursor to the end of the current line

^ or 0 (zero)

Moves the cursor to the beginning of the current line

w

Moves the cursor to the beginning of the next word or next punctuation

W

Moves the cursor to the beginning of the next word ignoring punctuation

b

Moves the cursor to the beginning of previous word or previous punctuation

B

Moves the cursor to the beginning of previous word ignoring punctuation

e

Move forward to the end of the next word or next punctuation

E

Move forward to the end of the next word ignoring punctuation