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<div class="SECT1">
<h1 class="SECT1"><a id="VI-OPENING-FILES" name="VI-OPENING-FILES">16.3 Opening
Files</a></h1>

<p><tt class="COMMAND">vi</tt> allows you to open files from command mode as well as
specifying a file on the command line to open. To open the file <tt
class="FILENAME">/etc/lilo.conf</tt>:</p>

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<kbd class="USERINPUT">:e /etc/lilo.conf</kbd>
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<p>If you have made changes to the current buffer without saving, <tt
class="COMMAND">vi</tt> will complain. You can still open the file without saving the
current buffer by typing <b class="KEYCAP">:e!</b>, followed by a space and the filename.
In general, <tt class="COMMAND">vi</tt>'s warnings can be suppressed by following the
command with an exclamation mark.</p>

<p>If you want to reopen the current file, you can do so simply by typing <b
class="KEYCAP">e!</b>. This is particularly useful if you have somehow messed up the file
and want to reopen it.</p>

<p>Some <tt class="COMMAND">vi</tt> clones (for example, <tt class="COMMAND">vim</tt>)
allow for multiple buffers to be open at the same time. For example, to open up the file
<tt class="FILENAME">09-vi.sgml</tt> in my home directory while another file was open, I
would type:</p>

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<kbd class="USERINPUT">:split ~/09-vi.sgml</kbd>
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<p>The new file is displayed on the top half of the screen, and the old file is displayed
in the bottom half of the screen. There are a lot of commands that manipulate the split
screen, and many of these commands start to resemble something out of <tt
class="COMMAND">Emacs</tt> The best place to look up these commands would be the man page
for your vi clone. Note that many clones do not support the split-screen idea, so you
might not be able to use it at all.</p>
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