Rule the bash: How to edit CLI input with VIM

Sometimes we have to write quite long shell commands, right? And from time to time you have an error in there or want to change a command from the history to do something else, right?

If you are a vim user you probably hate to navigate with the cursor keys to the position in the command you would like to change. So why not use vim (commands) for that? Here are two ways to do it:

I. Edit current command line in vim

You can easily edit the current bash line with your default text editor right from the console. I expect you to have vim as your default editor. ;)

Type something in the CLI or get something from it’s history and hit CTRL+x, CTRL+e. This will open your default text editor and put the current command line in the buffer.

Edit the command as you wish. Then save and close the buffer with :wq. The command will be executed and you are done!

If you want to change your last CLI command, you can simple edit it with your default editor by executing this:

$ fc

Thanks to Joe Nerdan for pointing this out!

II. Enable vi commands directly in your CLI

Another way to use vim for your command line interface would be to execute this in your bash:

$ set -o vi

This way you will get vim insert and command modes right in your command line! So you can use the movement and replacement commands of vi. If you like it, put this in your ~/.bashrc to make it a persistent change to your bash.