ex Command-Line Options
While most people know
ex
commands only by
their use within vi
, the editor also exists as a
separate program and can be invoked from the shell (for instance, to
edit files as part of a script). Within ex
, you
can enter the vi
or visual
command to start vi
. Similarly, within
vi
, you can enter Q
to quit
the vi
editor and enter ex
.
If you invoke ex
as a standalone editor, you can
include the following options:
- +[
num
] Start editing at line number
num
, or the last line of the file ifnum
is omitted.- +
/
pattern
Start editing at the first line matching
pattern
. (Fails ifnowrapscan
is set in your .exrc startup file.)- -c
command
Run the given
ex
command at startup. Only one-c
option is permitted. An older form of this option,+
command
, is still supported.- -e
Run as a line editor rather than full-screen
vi
mode (default).- -l
Enter LISP mode for running LISP programs (not supported in all versions).
- -r
[
file
]
Recover and resume editing on
file
after an aborted editor session or system crash. Withoutfile
, list files available for recovery.- -s
Silent; don’t display prompts. Useful when running a script. This behavior also can be set through the older
-
option.- -t
tag
Edit the file containing
tag
and position the cursor at its definition (seectags
in Chapter 28 for more information).- -v
Run in full-screen mode (same as invoking
vi
).- -w
rows
Set the window size so
rows
lines at a time are displayed; useful when editing by a slow dial-up line.- -x
Prompt for a key that will try to ...
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