CODEWITHSUNDEEP
vim
jerzy
jerzy

Reputation: 2654

How do I delete the previous character in vim?

Given this line of text in vim, where the cursor is located at the caret, and the user is in command mode:

sales_tax: row["sales tax"] ,
____________________________^

What is the fastest way to delete the space between the ] and the ,?

Upvotes: 27

Views: 20639

Answers (3)

Adam Katz
Adam Katz

Reputation: 16138

There are already two great answers here. Let's assume you really want the backspace button to delete the previous character while in normal mode. You can change that behavior with this line in your ~/.vimrc file:

nnoremap <silent> <backspace> X

This will tell vim to issue the X command (as noted in Axnyff's answer) whenever you hit Backspace in normal mode. I think I like this; it now lives in my ~/.vimrc.

There are precious few available keys for mapping and Space and Backspace (mapped by default to l and h respectively) seem decent candidates for other functionality. I find this mapping intuitive and helpful, but that's a subjective call. It may or may not be desirable to you.

If you worry about what might happen without the mapping, it'll be pretty straightforward: you'll move the cursor onto the character you want to delete (and then you'll hit x, resulting in the same number of keypresses as h+x or Shift+x).

Upvotes: 0

Petr Volny
Petr Volny

Reputation: 559

Simple hx (meaning move left + del char) in command mode is also an option.

Upvotes: 7

Axnyff
Axnyff

Reputation: 9954

You should simply use X (which is shift+x)

Upvotes: 51

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