Vim Cheat Sheet

Posted on March 6th, 2021

There's already a number of cheat sheets out there for Vim and Vimscript, but I rarely find one that works. Or at the very least an easily searchable list with specific keywords describing what a function does. So I made one. (Or at least made a reference that I'll add stuff to when I find neat tricks).

This is largely meant to cover "lesser known" functions, but will cover others that may not be lesser known, purely because I felt like including it, or because it took embarassingly long for me to become aware of its existence.

Files

Function	Description	Tags
`writefile()`	Writes to a file, and creates said file if it doesn't exist. Largely useful by being a pure script feature, meaning you don't have to open a buffer to make a new file.	create, write, erase

Folders

Function	Description	Tags
`mkdir`	Creates a directory, but it supports several arguments. If the second argument is `"p"`, it both creates parent directories as needed, and newer versions of Vim don't throw if the directory exists	create, trees

Vim features

Keyword	Description	Tags
`silent!`	Bang version of `silent`, and it completely discards errors. Put it in front of anything causing an error, and it'll be handled quietly.	errors, error handling
`scriptversion`	(New Vim only): makes it possible to set the language standard. Not to be confused with `vim9script`, though it's in a similar alley for classic strings	version

Strings

Function	Description	Tags
`split()`	Potentially familiar, but the second argument supports regex	split
`..`	Alternative to `.` for string concatenation. Does the exact same thing but with no a mbiguity with the standard access operator, which also happens to be `.`.	String concatenation operator

Regex

Flag	Description	Tags
`\v`	Very magic - means characters are interpreted differently. The major implication here is that you can write () or [] groups without needing to escape characters. Same with or - generally, it removes the need for a lot of escaping.	magic, escaping
`\V`	Essentially the opposite of `\v`, but a bit more extreme. Largely useful if you've got a bit of a regex that you'd have to escape. Both `\v` and `\V` can be used in the same string, which makes it exceptionally useful in scripting contexts. `\v` still has a lot of uses, notably in `substitute` if you need regex, and you've forgotten about `:sm`. Function use is much more relevant, however.	no magic, escaping

Note: I'm not entirely sure why it's called magic. It just makes interpretation feel slightly more like traditional regex (assuming magic is on).

Posted on March 6th, 2021

Tags: cheat-sheet vim vimscript

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