Because vi is built on top of the ex line editor, you get all the power of a line editor as well. Any experienced vi user issues ex commands all the time - but usually one by one, at the colon prompt.
The one exception is the .exrc file ( 30.6 ) , which is, at bottom, a list of commands for ex to run on startup - in short, an editor script.
What many beginners don't know is that you can save a sequence of
ex
commands in any file, and execute it with the
:so
command (
33.4
)
. For example, Bruce Barnett uses this trick to set himself up specially for
editing FORTRAN programs (
31.11
)
.
In general,
sed
(
34.24
)
is better for general-purpose batch editing - such as making a set of global substitutions over and over again on multiple files - therefore,
:so
is most often used for reading in setup commands. Keep in mind though; any time you find yourself issuing the same commands over and over again,
think script!
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