Vim's :x command
In short: Vim has
:x which is basically the same as
:wq but slightly less typing.
The first time I opened Vim, it was an accident. In a mad panic, I started smashing keys. What was this wretched program? Soon, Vim presented me with a message telling me to type
:quit to exit Vim. This was the first Vim command I ever learned.
After spending more time with Vim, I learned the
:q shorthand. This is an example of Vim users’ hatred of the extra keystroke. Instead of typing
:write and then
:quit to save and quit, you can type
Most Vim users I’ve met know about
:wq, but a big slew of people (including me, until recently) don’t know they can trim a keystroke with the (nearly) equivalent
:x command. To quote Vim’s documentation on the command:
:wq, but write only when changes have been made.
:x instead of
:wq every time and haven’t encountered a problem—it’s rare that you need to update the modification time of a file with no other changes.
This has saved me thousands of keystrokes throughout my Vim career. I thought it was worth sharing with the world!