NAME
ex, edit - text editor

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

DESCRIPTION
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.

If you have not used ed, or are a casual user, you will find that
the editor edit is convenient for you. It avoids some of the
complexities of ex used mostly by systems programmers and persons
very familiar with ed.

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 document Edit: A Tutorial (see MachTen Text Processing manual)
provides a comprehensive introduction to edit assuming no previous
knowledge of computers or the UNIX system.

The Ex Reference Manual - Version 3.7 (see MachTen Text Processing
manual) 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; the material in the introductory and
advanced documents works also with ex.

An Introduction to Display Editing with Vi (see MachTen Text
Processing manual) introduces the display editor vi, provides
reference material on vi, and includes a Vi Quick Reference
summary.

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

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

AUTHOR
Originally written by William Joy
Mark Horton has maintained the editor since version 2.7, adding
macros, support for many unusual terminals, and other features such
as word abbreviation mode.

BUGS
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.