What does z stand for in vim?

Question

I was looking up at tips on screen shifting and came across the following tips:

zz = shift current line to middle of screen
zt = shift current line to top of screen
zb = shift current line to bottom of screen

My question is what is z? What does it stand for? what other functionality might z have?

With folding, it can visually represent a ... folded sheet of paper. Otherwise, a letter that has to be used, after all good letters were taken for "important" operations that could use a good mnemonic. — VanLaser, Mar 22 '16 at 23:27

jamessan · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-23T00:23:54.100

37

z doesn't stand for anything. g and z were two letters that went unused as standalone commands (z<CR>, z., z+, z-, and z^ existed) in vi, so they have been repurposed in Vim as a prefix for a variety of commands.

:help z and :help g will show you all the commands that sit behind these prefixes.

edited Mar 23 '16 at 00:23

answered Mar 23 '16 at 00:16

jamessan

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One of my favorite commands uses both g and z. :g/pattern/z#.2 – jecxjo Mar 23 '16 at 14:52
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and what does that command do? – Durga Swaroop Jul 15 '16 at 19:16
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@DurgaSwaroop It finds all occurrences of pattern, and displays them in a list with line numbers – user70585 Oct 18 '17 at 21:37
Here is the description and example for usage of g and z. – SangminKim Jan 06 '18 at 15:58
That 'Power of g' article doesnt explain it, it merely demonstrates it. Explanation is wanting. – markling Jan 22 '22 at 12:53

What does z stand for in vim?

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