Format
ex [–BelRrsv]
[+command] [–c command]
[–t tag] [–w size] [-W option[,option]...] [file …file …]
Description
ex is
the line-editor mode of the vi text editor.
Options
The
ex internal
commands are described in
vi. It supports
the following options:
- +command
- Begins the editing session by running the specified editor command.
To specify multiple commands, separate them with a vertical bar (|).
- –B
- Disables the automatic conversion of tagged files. This option
is ignored if the filecodeset or pgmcodeset options
(-W option) are specified.
- –c command
- Begins editing by executing the specified editor command. To specify
multiple commands, separate them with an “or” bar (|). command can
be any ex command except those that enter
input mode, such as insert or append.
- –e
- Invokes ex. This option is intended
for use with vi.
- –l
- Sets LISP mode. The ( and ) commands use blocks of LISP code as
their context rather than sentences.
- –r
- Recovers named files after an editor or system fails. If you do
not specify a file argument, ex lists all
recoverable files and then exits.
When
using ex -r to recover a file that was being
edited with automatic conversion, the file must also be recovered
with automatic conversion enabled when writing the data back to the
original tagged text file. Likewise, if explicit conversion was being
used when editing the file (by using the -W filecodeset or -W
pgmcodeset options), the same options must be specified
when writing the recovered data back to the original file. Failure
to do either of these might result in incorrectly coded character
data being written to the file when you save the recovered version.
- –R
- Sets read-only mode.
- –s
- Suppresses all interactive feedback (quiet mode). This option
is for batch mode operation; ex assumes
that the terminal cannot display text and ignores the value of TERM. ex also
ignores all startup files and ignores the value of EXINIT.
- –t tag
- Edits the file containing the specified tag and
sets the virtual position in the edit buffer to point of definition
for the tag.
- –v
- Invokes vi.
- –w size
- Sets the option variable window equal to size.
- -W option[,option]...
- Specifies z/OS-specific options. The option keywords are case-sensitive. Possible
options are:
- filecodeset=codeset
- Performs text conversion from one code set to another when reading
from the file. The coded character set of the file is codeset. codeset can
be a code set name known to the system or a numeric coded character
set identifier (CCSID). Note that the command iconv -l lists
existing CCSIDs along with their corresponding code set names. The filecodeset and pgmcodeset options
can be used on files with any file tag.
If pgmcodeset is
specified but filecodeset is omitted, then
the default file code set is ISO8859-1 even if the file is tagged
with a different code set. If neither filecodeset nor pgmcodeset is
specified, text conversion will not occur unless automatic conversion
is enabled or the _TEXT_CONV environment variable indicates text conversion.
For more information about text conversion, see Controlling text conversion for z/OS UNIX shell commands.
If filecodeset or pgmcodeset is
specified, then automatic conversion is disabled for this command
invocation and the -B option is ignored
if it is also specified. See z/OS UNIX System Services Planning for
more information about automatic conversion.
When specifying values for filecodeset,
use the values that Unicode Service supports. For more information
about supported code sets, see z/OS Unicode Services User's Guide and Reference.
- pgmcodeset=codeset
- Performs text conversion from one code set to another when reading
from the file. The coded character set of the program (command) is codeset. codeset can
be a code set name known to the system or a numeric coded character
set identifier (CCSID). Note that the command iconv -l lists
existing CCSIDs along with their corresponding code set names. The filecodeset and pgmcodeset options
can be used on files with any file tag.
If filecodeset is
specified but pgmcodeset is omitted, then
the default program code set is IBM-1047. If neither filecodeset nor pgmcodeset is
specified, text conversion will not occur unless automatic conversion
is enabled or the _TEXT_CONV environment variable indicates text conversion.
For more information about text conversion, see Controlling text conversion for z/OS UNIX shell commands.
If filecodeset or pgmcodeset is
specified, then automatic conversion is disabled for this command
invocation and the -B option is ignored
if it is also specified. See z/OS UNIX System Services Planning for
more information about automatic conversion.
Restriction: The
only supported values for pgmcodeset are
IBM-1047 and 1047.
Examples
- To edit or browse a file containing UTF-8 characters
using the ex editor, assuming that:
- The file is untagged and you do not want to tag it or enable automatic
conversion, and
- You cannot alter the tag (for example, you are browsing an untagged
public file or a read-only file)
issue: ex -W filecodeset=UTF-8,pgmcodeset=IBM-1047 myUtf8File
- To edit or browse a file containing EBCDIC characters using the ex editor,
assuming that automatic conversion has been enabled but the file is
incorrectly tagged as ASCII, issue:
ex -B myMisTaggedFile
Localization
ex uses
the following localization environment variables:
- LANG
- LC_ALL
- LC_CTYPE
- LC_MESSAGES
- NLSPATH
See Localization for more
information.
Environment variables
ex uses
the following environment variable:
- _TEXT_CONV
- Contains text conversion information for the command. The text
conversion information is not used when either the -B option
or the filecodeset or pgmcodeset option
(-W option) is specified. For more information
about text conversion, see Controlling text conversion for z/OS UNIX shell commands.
Exit values
- 0
- Successful completion
- 1
- Failure due to any of the following:
- The code set is not valid
- Could not turn off automatic conversion
- Could not perform requested text conversion
- 2
- Failure due to any of the following:
- Unknown command-line option
- Missing or incorrect num in an –n option
Portability
POSIX.2 User Portability Extension, X/Open Portability Guide, UNIX systems.
The –B, –e, –W,
and –x options are extensions of the POSIX
standard.
Related information
ed, vi