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modifiers basicCommand object
The four types of modifiers are direction, count, emphasis, and special. They can be specified in any order, as long as they precede basicCommand. The object must follow basicCommand. Not all basic commands need or allow the use of modifiers or objects.
2.1. Direction (+ or -)
For many commands, + (plus)
indicates “toward the end of the buffer”, and - (minus)
indicates “toward the beginning of the buffer”. + is the default
in such commands.
Some commands, such as .B, F, X, and Y, use the + or - modifiers in their own special ways. See the descriptions of those commands for details. In some commands, both + and - may be used. In some commands, the number of +'s or -'s is important, and the command may contain more than one + or -.
| Command | Action |
|---|---|
| < | Move the cursor left one column |
| n< | Move the cursor left n columns |
| G | Go to next page |
| nG | Go to page n |
The effects of quantifiers are included in the description of
each command.
2.3. Emphasis (Q)
The Q modifier generally indicates emphasis, or “do the following
command in a big way”. Thus, it often plays the role of an infinite
count, though it can also indicate a special case of the command.
For example, with the D (Delete) command:
3DW Delete three words
QDW Delete all remaining words on the current line
Command descriptions often describe the Q modifier as giving a command an effect over “all characters”, “all words”, or “all lines”. Such character and word ranges are limited to the current line, and such line ranges are limited to the current page (although they may be partially outside the current window).
Some commands perform differently depending on how many times the
Q modifier is repeated;
that is, a command can contain multiple Qs.
2.4. Special ($)
Some commands can be prefixed with the modifier $.
Like the direction and emphasis modifiers, a command can sometimes
contain more than one $.
For example:
5$G Go to absolute line number 5
$TsearchString<eol> Search for searchString case-sensitively
2.5. Basic Command
The basic command is the verb part of the command string; it
specifies the action to be taken. The basic command consists
usually of a single character, or sometimes one or more dots
followed by a character.
For example, K means “Kill a character”,
whereas .K means “Kill
buffers”. The . has no consistent meaning across commands.
It is important to remember that the basic command separates the
modifiers from the object. If a basic command consists of more than
one character, the characters must be contiguous; i.e., they may not
be separated by modifiers. For example, .3C is not the same as
3.C.
2.6. Object
Many basic commands can act on either characters, words, lines, or
pages, and thus require that the target object be specified. The
summaries for these commands give a list of possible objects,
such as [C|W|L|P]. This means to follow the basic command with
exactly one of the options inside the square brackets.
For example, when using the C command, type CC to copy characters, CW to copy words, CL to copy lines or CP to copy pages.