April 7, 2012

Techbits #13: Unix "vi" Editor - ZZ

Given the depth of the previous Techbit, let's make this a short one.

If you're working on Unix-based systems, you must have used the "vi" command at one or other point of time.

While using "vi" in escape mode, you can use ZZ (shift+zz) to save the file. I found this much more convenient than its equivalent ":wq" or ":wq!". However, the percentage of people whom I've seen using this is very less.

Now, what could be the reason as to why this did not become very popular? Some say that it could be because Ctrl and Shift keys are adjacent to each other due to which one might accidentally press Ctrl instead of Shift - this then pushes the current process (vi) to background due to Ctrl+z (the first z itself). All of a sudden, the user will see himself/herself at the command line prompt. This might confuse the users and hence it might not have been published or popularized so widely.

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