#VIM SAVE AND QUIT HOW TO#

I'll be glad to write more about these differences if someone is interested, but until then, I'll leave this vi tutorial as is. To quit, discarding any changes you might have made::q Memorize: quit dammit To quit, saving any changes youve made::wq Memorize: write to disk and quit. If you are editing multiple files at one time with vi there are a few subtle differences with these commands (because vi needs to know what you mean by 'exit' when you're editing several files at once). If you use these vim exit/quit/save commands while editing just one file at a time, all of these commands will work as shown above. I think the only difference between those two commands is that the first command is issued from last line mode (and it takes me longer to type), while the second command is issued from vi command mode. In my case, I just like to go fast, so I issue this equivalent command from the vi command mode to write and quit: If you prefer being consistent and using only the vim last line mode you can issue this command to 'write your changes to disk, and then quit (write and quit)': vi/vim “exit and save changes”įinally, if when you say 'exit vim', you mean that you want to save your changes before you exit vim, there are at least two ways to save your changes to a file and then close the vi editor. I don't know if it will help to think of it this way, but a friend of mine also refers to this as a 'force quit' command. (I didn't make up the 'dammit' part of that command, it's been referred to that way longer than I've been using vi.) Ending an Editing Session :w, writes the contents of the work buffer to the file :q, quit :q quit without saving changes ZZ, save and quit :wq, save and. Save a File and Exit Vim If youre currently in insert mode, switch back to command mode by pressing the Esc key. If you have made changes to your file, but you don't want to save them (you want to discard them), use the 'vim quit dammit' command: In such case you can save file without login as root using the sudo.

As a sysadmin you might edit a file non-privileged user.

#VIM SAVE AND QUIT HOW TO#

You just learned how to save a read-only file edited in vim text editor. If you haven't made any changes to your file you can just quit your vi (or vim) editing session like this:īecause vim tracks changes made to your file, you can use this simple vim quit command when you haven't changed your file, and it won't prompt you with any sort of 'Are you sure?' message. This plugin enables vim to read files, using sudo or su or any other tool that can be used for changing the authentication of a user. vi “exit” with no changes made to your file (vim quit command) Here's a short list of the different ways I normally quit or exit a vi/vim editor session. Vim quit/save/exit FAQ: How do I quit/exit vim?Īnswer: This depends by what you mean by the word exit.

Vim save and quit