How can I delete in Vim all text from current cursor position to the end of file without using End key?

Question

Is there any other possibility to delete from the current cursor position till end of the file without using the End keyboard key?

I know that I can perform it with d<CTRL-End> but perhaps is there an easier way.

Edit: dG doesn't help here as it deletes also the whole line the cursor is currently in. I don't want to delete anything on the left side of the cursor in the current line.

Answer 1

With your cursor in starting position to begin, you can do: vG$d

• v ( enter visual mode )
• G ( go to bottom of file )
• $ ( go to end of line )
• d ( delete selection )

Answer 2

Remastered original answer

Not the answer you are looking for but (unless we're playing Vim golf) I'd just type d$jdG or DjdG (as Izkata was kind enough to point out) and nothing fancy. That's deleting the rest of the line with d$ or D, going down one line with j and then deleting the rest of the buffer with dG.

This is a few more keystrokes but they come naturally to me, my fingers can stay on the home row for the most part and it's done before I even started to think if there's a shorter way to do it.

Anyways it's much faster than me playing hide and seek with End. Every manufacturer seems to have their own scheme of hiding this fine key. So I would definitely have to look down on my keyboard to locate it. Not worth it.

Bonus track

The caveat of above solution is that it's technically two deletions. It needs uu to undo, can't be repeated with . etc.

In comparison, using visual mode as per Zac's great answer we can undo with a single u but also not safely repeat. Using visual mode is better in this case but by no means perfect.

Seeing how d<C-End> solves exactly the problem and how awkward the End key is, you may consider remapping the motion to a key you can actually touch type. There does not seem to be a motion Z and z is at the end of the alphabet so I picked it:

:onoremap Z <C-End>

And dZ will behave exactly like d<C-End> and remove everything in the buffer starting from the cursor position. The whole family of cZ, yZ etc. will work.

This, you can undo with u and repeat with ..

Answer 3

I'm surprised no one has mentioned DjdG yet.

• D deletes everything from the cursor to the end of the line.
• j moves 1 line down
• dG deletes all lines till end of file.

It's also fast to type, because all keys are on the home row.

Answer 4

I believe d<C-End> should do as you want.

Your problem with dG is that it is linewise (as I think can be gleaned from :help G); to force the motion to be character-wise, you could use v between the operator and motion. Similarly V would force linewise. So dvG almost works, but character-wise G ends up in column 1.

Fortunately, the <C-End> motion goes to the last character on the given line, which defaults to the last line. So it's a bit like G$ in one motion. Note that this is an "inclusive" motion, so you might want to do ld<C-End> if you want to keep the character under the cursor.