Type ^Q in vim editor

Question

I need to replace ^Q, ^S and ^U in a text file with Ubuntu. These are ctrl+Q and not carat+Q . Since ^Q is a control key command, I cannot type that in and carat+Q does not work. Is there anyway to type in ^Q ^S and ^U

Answer 1

There's an escape sequence for this.

For ^Q type Ctrl+V Ctrl+Q. On some system you have to type the code for it, eg: Ctrl+V 017.

Answer 2

An alternative to using Ctrl-V is to use digraphs. A digraph is a two-character representation of a Unicode value, which can include control characters. By default the digraph for ^Q is D1 , ^S is D3 and ^U is NK . To enter a digraph in insert mode press Ctrl-K followed by the digraph, eg to enter use <Ctrl-K>D1 .

The docs say you can also set the 'digraph' option and enter a digraph by pressing first character, backspace, second character. This does not appear to work for all control characters though.

You can use digraphs to enter a wide range of Unicode characters, and can redefine existing ones or define new ones. Type :digraph to get a full list of currently defined digraphs and :h digraphs to see the full help.