Useful address specifiers

There are a few useful address specifiers that are well worth remembering. These are:

• ., which represents the current line
• $, which represents the last line in the file — for example, :$d deletes the last line in the buffer
• 't, which represents the line that mark t is set to
• /foo/, which represents the next line where foo matches (relative to the cursor position) — for example, :/foo/d deletes the next line where the text foo appears
• ?foo?, which represents the previous line where foo matches (relative to the cursor position) — for example, :?foo?d deletes the previous line where the text foo appears
• You can offset an address with a positive or negative number, e.g. :+1d deletes the line one below the cursor, and :-1d deletes the line one before the cursor

You can also chain these specifiers for some interesting results. For example:

• :/foo/+2d deletes the line that is two lines below the next match of foo
• :0/import/d deletes the first line in the buffer that contains the word import
• :/foo/?bar?d jumps to the next match of foo, then jumps back from there to the previous match of bar, then deletes that line

Have a play with these in the editor. The :delete command accepts any of these address, so give it a try.