When you type commands, text jumps around on the screen and nothing works the way it's supposed to.
Make sure you're not typing the J
command when you mean j
.
You may have hit the
[CAPS LOCK]
key without noticing it.
vi is case-sensitive. That is, uppercase commands (I
,
A
, J
, etc.) are different from lowercase commands
(i
, a
, j
), so all your commands are being
interpreted not as lowercase but as uppercase commands.
Press the
[CAPS LOCK]
key again to return to lowercase,
press
[ESC]
to ensure that you are in command mode,
then type either U
to restore the
last line changed or u
to undo the last command.
You'll probably also have to do some additional editing to fully
restore the garbled part of your file.