1EX(1) General Commands Manual EX(1)
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6 ex, edit - text editor
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9 ex [ - ] [ -v ] [ -t tag ] [ -r ] [ +command ] [ -l ] name ...
10 edit [ ex options ]
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13 Ex is the root of a family of editors: edit, ex and vi. Ex is a super‐
14 set of ed, with the most notable extension being a display editing
15 facility. Display based editing is the focus of vi.
16 If you have not used ed, or are a casual user, you will find that the
18 editor edit is convenient for you. It avoids some of the complexities
19 of ex used mostly by systems programmers and persons very familiar with
20 ed.
21 If you have a CRT terminal, you may wish to use a display based editor;
23 in this case see vi(1), which is a command which focuses on the display
24 editing portion of ex.
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27 The document Edit: A tutorial (USD:14) provides a comprehensive intro‐
28 duction to edit assuming no previous knowledge of computers or the UNIX
29 system.
30 The Ex Reference Manual - Version 3.7 (USD:16) is a comprehensive and
32 complete manual for the command mode features of ex, but you cannot
33 learn to use the editor by reading it. For an introduction to more
34 advanced forms of editing using the command mode of ex see the editing
35 documents written by Brian Kernighan for the editor ed; the material in
36 the introductory and advanced documents works also with ex.
37 An Introduction to Display Editing with Vi (USD:15) introduces the dis‐
39 play editor vi and provides reference material on vi. In addition, the
40 Vi Quick Reference card summarizes the commands of vi in a useful,
41 functional way, and is useful with the Introduction.
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44 /usr/share/misc/exstrings error messages
45 /usr/libexec/exrecover recover command
46 /usr/sbin/expreserve preserve command
47 /etc/termcap describes capabilities of terminals
48 ~/.exrc editor startup file
49 /tmp/Exnnnnn editor temporary
50 /tmp/Rxnnnnn named buffer temporary
51 /usr/preserve preservation directory
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54 awk(1), ed(1), grep(1), sed(1), grep(1), vi(1), termcap(5), environ(7)
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57 Originally written by William Joy
58 Mark Horton has maintained the editor since version 2.7, adding macros,
59 support for many unusual terminals, and other features such as word
60 abbreviation mode.
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63 The undo command causes all marks to be lost on lines changed and then
64 restored if the marked lines were changed.
65 Undo never clears the buffer modified condition.
67 The z command prints a number of logical rather than physical lines.
69 More than a screen full of output may result if long lines are present.
70 File input/output errors don't print a name if the command line `-'
72 option is used.
73 There is no easy way to do a single scan ignoring case.
75 The editor does not warn if text is placed in named buffers and not
77 used before exiting the editor.
78 Null characters are discarded in input files, and cannot appear in
80 resultant files.
814th Berkeley Distribution October 21, 1996 EX(1)