Move cursor to beginning of non-whitespace characters in a line in Vim

Question

In Vim, is there a way to move the cursor to the beginning of non-whitespace characters in a line? For instance, how can I move the cursor to the "S" in the second line below?

First line
    Second line

If it matters, I primarily use MacVim, but I'd also like to be able to do this from the console.

Thanks!

score 79 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 28 '21 at 23:30

79

Instead of pressing ^ you can press _(underscore) to jump to the first non-whitespace character on the same line the cursor is on.

+ and - jump to the first non-whitespace character on the next / previous line.

(These commands only work in normal mode, not in insert mode.)

edited Apr 28 '21 at 23:30

Community

1

answered Dec 15 '14 at 20:56

Ben

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Can also use `` as an alternative to `+`, which is nice because it doesn't require holding shift. – David James May 07 '20 at 16:07
2

For a discussion about the **difference** between the `^` and `_` motions, [**see here**](https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/155926/39845). – Serge Stroobandt Apr 02 '21 at 14:55

score 75 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 23 '11 at 14:07

75

If I understand correctly - from :h ^:

^ To the first non-blank character of the line.
  |exclusive| motion.

(in contrast to 0, which gets you to the beginning, regardless of whitespace or not)

answered Jun 23 '11 at 14:07

slhck

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+1 on the `0` comment – Roy Truelove Sep 01 '17 at 17:01

shmup · Answer 3 · 2021-09-05T13:57:20.173

13

Also possibly useful: + and - will move the cursor up or down, respectively, to the first non-blank character.

edited Sep 05 '21 at 13:57

answered Sep 13 '14 at 15:37

shmup

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score 7 · Answer 4 · answered May 18 '12 at 18:42

7

below is a snippet from by .vimrc
^[[1~ is created by pressing ctrl+v and Home

"jump to first non-whitespace on line, jump to begining of line if already at first non-whitespace
map <Home> :call LineHome()<CR>:echo<CR>
imap <Home> <C-R>=LineHome()<CR>
map ^[[1~ :call LineHome()<CR>:echo<CR>
imap ^[[1~ <C-R>=LineHome()<CR>
function! LineHome()
  let x = col('.')
  execute "normal ^"
  if x == col('.')
    execute "normal 0"
  endif
  return ""
endfunction

answered May 18 '12 at 18:42

Andrew Sohn

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Thanks, this is what I was searching for. This behaviour is common on editors nowadays (Atom/VSCode/Sublime to name a few) and I've gotten used to it... – yyny Nov 30 '16 at 19:13

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered May 21 '18 at 06:10

1

I just remap the 0 key to ^

Edit your ~/.vimrc

set visualbell t_vb=
map 0 ^

answered May 21 '18 at 06:10

Sunding Wei

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score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Jun 05 '18 at 20:39

Expanding on Andrew Sohn's answer, if you'd like to use 0 for this behavior, just wrap it like so:

function! LineHome()
  let x = col('.')
  execute "normal ^"
  if x == col('.')
    unmap 0
    execute "normal 0"
    map 0 :call LineHome()<CR>:echo<CR>
  endif
  return ""
endfunction

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered May 15 '20 at 17:41

And just for completeness, here is the dual of Andrew Sohn's Answer:

" jump to the last non-whitespace char on line, or eol if already there
map <End> :call LineEnd()<CR>:echo<CR>
imap <End> <C-R>=LineEnd()<CR>
function! LineEnd()
  let x = col('.')
    execute "normal g_"
  if x == col('.')
    execute "normal $"
  endif
 return ""
endfunction

Move cursor to beginning of non-whitespace characters in a line in Vim

7 Answers7