Running Editing Scripts Within vi (Unix Power Tools, 3rd Edition)

20.5. Running Editing Scripts Within vi

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 (Section 17.5), 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 (Section 20.4). For example, Bruce Barnett uses this trick to set himself up specially for editing FORTRAN programs (Section 18.10).

In general, sed (Section 34.1) 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!

-- TOR