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EX(1) General Commands Manual EX(1)

ex, edit — text editor

ex [-] [-v] [-t tag] [-r] [[+command]] [-l] name ...

edit [ex options]

Ex is the root of a family of editors: edit, 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(1) and requires a CRT.

For users unfamiliar with ed(1), the editor edit is probably easier to learn. It avoids some of the complexities of ex used mostly by systems programmers and persons comfortable with the ed(1) editor.

The following documentation is found in the “UNIX User's Manual Supplementary Documents”:

Edit: A tutorial provides a comprehensive introduction to edit assuming no previous knowledge of computers or the UNIX system.

Ex Reference Manual - Version 3.7 is a comprehensive and complete manual for the command mode features of ex, but you cannot learn to use the editor by reading it. 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(1); the material in the introductory and advanced documents works also with ex.

An Introduction to Display Editing with Vi introduces the display editor vi(1) and provides reference material on vi(1). In addition, the Vi Quick Reference card summarizes the commands of vi(1) in a useful, functional way, and is useful with the introduction.

The ex command uses the following environment variables.

User specified startup values for ex.
Default directory to search for the file ~/.exrc
Shell used for commands (with the ! command).
Terminal type.
Alternate termcap file.

/usr/libexec/ex?.?strings
error messages
/usr/libexec/ex?.?recover
recover command
/usr/libexec/ex?.?preserve
preserve command
/usr/share/misc/termcap
describes capabilities of terminals
~/.exrc
editor startup file
/tmp/Exnnnnn
editor temporary
/tmp/Rxnnnnn
named buffer temporary
/var/preserve
preservation directory

awk(1), ed(1), grep(1), sed(1), grep(1), vi(1), termcap(5), environ(7)

Ex appeared in 3BSD.

The undo command causes all marks to be lost on lines changed and then restored if the marked lines were changed.

Undo never clears the buffer modified condition.

The z command prints a 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 don't print a name if the command line ‘-’ 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.

BSD 4 June 21, 1993 EX(1)