ex(1)

NAME

ex − text editor

SYNOPSIS

ex [−s] [−v] [−t tag] [−r file] [−L] [−R] [−x] [−C] [−c command] [−l] file ...

DESCRIPTION

ex is the root of a family of editors: ex and vi. ex is a superset of ed, with the most notable extension being a display editing facility. Display based editing is the focus of vi.

If you have a CRT terminal, you may wish to use a display based editor; in this case see vi(1), which is a command which focuses on the display-editing portion of ex.

DOCUMENTATION

The Ex Reference Manual is a comprehensive and complete manual for the command mode features of ex. For an introduction to more advanced forms of editing using the command mode of ex see the editing documents written by Brian Kernighan for the editor ed; the material in the introductory and advanced documents works also with ex.

An Introduction to Display Editing with Vi introduces the display editor vi and provides reference material on vi. The Vi Quick Reference card summarizes the commands of vi in a useful, functional way, and is useful with the Introduction. The vi(1) manual page can also be used as reference.

For ed Users

If you have used ed you will find that, in addition to having all of the ed commands available, ex has a number of additional features useful on CRT terminals. Intelligent terminals and high speed terminals are very pleasant to use with vi. Generally, the ex editor uses far more of the capabilities of terminals than ed does, and uses the terminal capability data base [see terminfo(4)] and the type of the terminal you are using from the environmental variable TERM to determine how to drive your terminal efficiently. The editor makes use of features such as insert and delete character and line in its visual command (which can be abbreviated vi) and which is the central mode of editing when using the vi command.

ex contains a number of features for easily viewing the text of the file. The z command gives easy access to windows of text. Typing ^D (control-d) causes the editor to scroll a half-window of text and is more useful for quickly stepping through a file than just typing return. Of course, the screen-oriented visual mode gives constant access to editing context.

ex gives you help when you make mistakes. The undo (u) command allows you to reverse any single change which goes astray. ex gives you a lot of feedback, normally printing changed lines, and indicates when more than a few lines are affected by a command so that it is easy to detect when a command has affected more lines than it should have.

The editor also normally prevents overwriting existing files, unless you edited them, so that you do not accidentally overwrite a file other than the one you are editing. If the system (or editor) crashes, or you accidentally hang up the telephone, you can use the editor recover command (or −r file option) to retrieve your work. This will get you back to within a few lines of where you left off.

ex has several features for dealing with more than one file at a time. You can give it a list of files on the command line and use the next (n) command to deal with each in turn. The next command can also be given a list of file names, or a pattern as used by the shell to specify a new set of files to be dealt with. In general, file names in the editor may be formed with full shell metasyntax. The metacharacter ‘%’ is also available in forming file names and is replaced by the name of the current file.

The editor has a group of buffers whose names are the ASCII lower-case letters (a-z). You can place text in these named buffers where it is available to be inserted elsewhere in the file. The contents of these buffers remain available when you begin editing a new file using the edit (e) command.

There is a command & in ex which repeats the last substitute command. In addition, there is a confirmed substitute command. You give a range of substitutions to be done and the editor interactively asks whether each substitution is desired.

It is possible to ignore the case of letters in searches and substitutions. ex also allows regular expressions which match words to be constructed. This is convenient, for example, in searching for the word “edit” if your document also contains the word “editor.”

ex has a set of options which you can set to tailor it to your liking. One option which is very useful is the autoindent option that allows the editor to supply leading white space to align text automatically. You can then use ^D as a backtab and space or tab to move forward to align new code easily.

Miscellaneous useful features include an intelligent join (j) command that supplies white space between joined lines automatically, commands < and > which shift groups of lines, and the ability to filter portions of the buffer through commands such as sort.

Invocation Options

The following invocation options are interpreted by ex (previously documented options are discussed in the NOTES section at the end of this manual page):

−s Suppress all interactive-user feedback. This is useful in processing editor scripts.

−v Invoke vi.

−t tag Edit the file containing the tag and position the editor at its definition.

−r file Edit file after an editor or system crash. (Recovers the version of file that was in the buffer when the crash occurred.)

−L List the names of all files saved as the result of an editor or system crash.

−R Readonly mode; the readonly flag is set, preventing accidental overwriting of the file.

−x Encryption option; when used, ex simulates an X command and prompts the user for a key. This key is used to encrypt and decrypt text using the algorithm of the crypt command. The X command makes an educated guess to determine whether text read in is encrypted or not. The temporary buffer file is encrypted also, using a transformed version of the key typed in for the −x option. See crypt(1). Also, see the NOTES section at the end of this manual page.

−C Encryption option; the same as the −x option, except that ex simulates a C command. The C command is like the X command, except that all text read in is assumed to have been encrypted.

−c command
Begin editing by executing the specified editor command (usually a search or positioning command).

−l LISP mode; indents appropriately for lisp code, the () {} [[ and ]] commands in vi are modified to have meaning for lisp.

The file argument indicates one or more files to be edited.

ex States

Command Normal and initial state. Input prompted for by :. Your line kill character cancels a partial command.

Insert Entered by a, i, or c. Arbitrary text may be entered. Insert state normally is terminated by a line having only "." on it, or, abnormally, with an interrupt.

Visual Entered by typing vi; terminated by typing Q or ^\ (control-\).

ex Command Names and Abbreviations

abbrev	ab	map		set	se
append	a	mark	ma	shell	sh
args	ar	move	m	source	so
change	c	next	n	substitute	s
copy	co	number	nu	unabbrev	unab
delete	d	preserve	pre	undo	u
edit	e	print	p	unmap	unm
file	f	put	pu	version	ve
global	g	quit	q	visual	vi
insert	i	read	r	write	w
join	j	recover	rec	xit	x
list	l	rewind	rew	yank	ya

ex Commands

forced encryption	C	heuristic encryption	X
resubst	&	print next	CR
rshift	>	lshift	<
scroll	^D	window	z
shell escape	!	stop	st

ex Command Addresses

n	line n	/pat	next with pat
.	current	?pat	previous with pat
$	last	x-n	n before x
+	next	x,y	x through y
−	previous	´x	marked with x
+n	n forward	´´	previous context
%	1,$

Initializing options

EXINIT	place set’s here in environment variable
$HOME/.exrc	editor initialization file
./.exrc	editor initialization file
set x	enable option x
set nox	disable option x
set x=val	give value val to option x
set	show changed options
set all	show all options
set x?	show value of option x

Most useful options and their abbreviations

autoindent	ai	supply indent
autowrite	aw	write before changing files
directory		pathname of directory for temporary work files
exrc	ex	allow vi/ex to read the .exrc in the current directory. This option is set in the EXINIT shell variable or in the .exrc file in the $HOME directory.
ignorecase	ic	ignore case of letters in scanning
list		print ^I for tab, $ at end
magic		treat . [ ∗ special in patterns
modelines		first five lines and last five lines executed as vi/ex commands if they are of the form ex:command: or vi:command:
number	nu	number lines
paragraphs	para	macro names that start paragraphs
redraw		simulate smart terminal
report		informs you if the number of lines modified by the last command is greater than the value of the report variable
scroll		command mode lines
sections	sect	macro names that start sections
shiftwidth	sw	for < >, and input ^D
showmatch	sm	to ) and } as typed
showmode	smd	show insert mode in vi
slowopen	slow	stop updates during insert
term		specifies to vi the type of terminal being used (the default is the value of the environmental variable TERM)
window		visual mode lines
wrapmargin	wm	automatic line splitting
wrapscan	ws	search around end (or beginning) of buffer

Scanning pattern formation

^	beginning of line
$	end of line
.	any character
\<	beginning of word
\>	end of word
[str]	any character in str
[^str]	any character not in str
[x−y]	any character between x and y
∗	any number of preceding characters

AUTHOR

vi and ex are based on software developed by The University of California, Berkeley California, Computer Science Division, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

FILES

/usr/lib/ex?.?strings	error messages
/usr/lib/ex?.?recover	recover command
/usr/lib/ex?.?preserve	preserve command
/usr/lib/∗/∗	describes capabilities of terminals
$HOME/.exrc	editor startup file
./.exrc	editor startup file
/tmp/Exnnnnn	editor temporary
/tmp/Rxnnnnn	named buffer temporary
/usr/preserve	preservation directory

NOTES

Several options, although they continue to be supported, have been replaced in the documentation by options that follow the Command Syntax Guidelines. The − option has been replaced by −s, a −r option that is not followed with an option-argument has been replaced by −L, and +command has been replaced by −c command.

The encryption options and commands are available only in the United States.

The z command prints the number of logical rather than physical lines. More than a screen full of output may result if long lines are present.

File input/output errors do not print a name if the command line −s option is used.

There is no easy way to do a single scan ignoring case.

The editor does not warn if text is placed in named buffers and not used before exiting the editor.

Null characters are discarded in input files and cannot appear in resultant files.

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