what is the command for “Select All” in vim and VsVim?

Question

How do I select all the content of a file in Vim and VsVim? Like in other editors ctrl+A does the job for select all.

Answer 1

ggVG selects all content. gg moves to first line. V starts visual mode. G jumps to last line thereby selecting from first to last line

Answer 2

Along with SibiCoder's answer, if you have a clear idea of what you want to do you can use the following:

:%X

Where X is a command, for example:

:%d             -> delete every line
:%y             -> yank every line
:%normal! >>    -> indent every line

You have also the global command :g which, with the search pattern ^, can do the same thing:

:g/^/d             -> delete every line
:g/^/y             -> yank every line
:g/^/normal! >>    -> indent every line

If what you want is selecting the text, then ggVG is fine, but keep in mind these method, in the case you already know what is the next step. Note that it won't leave the cursor in visual mode.

See: :h :% and :h :g for reference.

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Note that, even though the C-A mapping is used in vim (see :h CTRL-A), you can map it to do what other editors do:

nnoremap <C-A> ggVG

Answer 3

The other answers are good. Here's another alternative.

Since you mention that you are using VsVim, you can change which keys are handled by visual Studio, and which keys are handled by vsvim. Go to

Tools -> Options -> VsVim -> Keyboard

From there you can set Ctrl-a to be handled by Visual Studio, rather than VsVim.

Although I do not recommend this since you will not be able to use vim's <C-a>, which I find to be an essential feature. Though it's up to you.

Answer 4

you can use a big number like 99999yy to select all the content of your file