ex(1)
NAME
ex − text editor
SYNOPSIS
ex [−t tag] [−r filename] [−l] [−L] [−wn] [−R] [−x] [−C] [−c command] filename...
AVAILABILITY
SUNWcsu
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.
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 environment 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 filename 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.
OPTIONS
−t tag Edit the file containing the tag and position the editor at its definition.
−r filename Edit filename after an editor or system crash. (Recovers the version of filename that was in the buffer when the crash occurred.)
−l Set up for editing LISP programs.
−L List the name of all files saved as the result of an editor or system crash.
−wn Set the default window size to n. This is useful when using the editor over a slow speed line.
−R Readonly mode; the readonly flag is set, preventing accidental overwriting of the file.
−x Encryption option; when used, ex simulates the X command of ex 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. Also, see the NOTES section at the end of this manual page.
−C Encryption option; same as the −x option, except that ex simulates the C command of ex. The C command is like the X command of ex, 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).
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 | 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 | ! |
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 environment 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
/tmp/Exnnnnn editor temporary
/tmp/Rxnnnnn named buffer temporary
/usr/lib/expreserve preserve command
/usr/lib/exrecover recover command
/usr/lib/exstrings error messages
/usr/share/lib/terminfo/∗ describes capabilities of terminals
/var/preserve/login preservation directory (where login is the user’s login)
$HOME/.exrc editor startup file
./.exrc editor startup file
SEE ALSO
ed(1), edit(1), grep(1), sed(1), sort(1), vi(1), curses(3X), term(4), terminfo(4)
UNKNOWN TITLE ABBREVIATION: ADVOSUG
NOTES
Several options, although they continue to be supported, have been replaced in the documentation by options that follow the Command Syntax Standard (see intro(1) ). 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 provided with the Security Administration Utilities package, which is 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.
The editing environment defaults to certain configuration options. When an editing session is initiated, ex attempts to read the EXINIT environment variable. If it exists, the editor uses the values defined in EXINIT, otherwise the values set in $HOME/.exrc are used. If $HOME/.exrc does not exist, the default values are used.
To use a copy of .exrc located in the current directory other than $HOME, set the exrc option in EXINIT or $HOME/.exrc. Options set in EXINIT can be turned off in a local .exrc only if exrc is set in EXINIT or $HOME/.exrc.
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.
SunOS 5.2 — Last change: 26 Sep 1992