Trying to quit vi editor gives an error

Question

I am using vi editor to write scripts, however I have made a mistake deleting some lines of code without saving. Now I would like to undo the changes. The way I found to do that was to use the u keystroke to undo the changes and it worked fine.

Now I was thinking to just quit the vi editor in the current state without saving the changes so I try

Press Esc key
Press :q to quit

It gives me an error

No write since the last change vi error while quitting

How do I get over with this error

Thanks for help.

Possible duplicate of [How to exit the Vim editor?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11828270/how-to-exit-the-vim-editor) — fedorqui, Jan 30 '17 at 09:03
You also always can send foreground task to back job with `Ctrl+Z`, and then `kill %1` — vp_arth, Jan 30 '17 at 09:03
@vp_arth Ctrl+Z doesn't help, but yeah :q! solves my problem, thanks — Shubham Khatri, Jan 30 '17 at 09:08

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 30 '17 at 09:01

3

You need to add an exclamation mark, i.e. :q!, to force exit without saving.

answered Jan 30 '17 at 09:01

LordWilmore

2,829
2
25
30

I was waiting for the 10min duration to get over as SO doesnt allow accepting a question before that – Shubham Khatri Jan 30 '17 at 09:15
I didn't know that! Cheers – LordWilmore Jan 30 '17 at 09:25

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 30 '17 at 09:09

2

The error simply means the file has changed and you have not save the recent changes. Its like trying to quit MsWord without saving, it prompts a Quit without saving changes?. What you can do is

If you want to save your changes type :w and q respectively. This write you changes and quits vi.

If you want to quit without saving type q!. This will quit without saving your recent changes.

answered Jan 30 '17 at 09:09

theterminalguy

1,842
18
20

Thanks for the proper explanation, – Shubham Khatri Jan 30 '17 at 09:17

Trying to quit vi editor gives an error

2 Answers2