z/OS V1R9.0 UNIX System Services Command ... - Christian Grothoff

vi
command
The command is a word, which can be abbreviated. Characters shown in
square brackets are optional. For example:
a[ppend]
indicates that the append command can be abbreviated to simply a.
! Some commands have a variant; this is usually toggled with an exclamation
mark (!) immediately after the command.
parameters
Many ex commands use parameters to allow you to specify more
information about commands. Common parameters include:
buffer Specifies one of the named areas for saving text.
count Is a positive integer, specifying the number of lines to be affected
by the command. If you do not specify count, it defaults to 1.
file Is the pathname for a file. If file includes the % character, vi
replaces that character with the pathname of the current file. If file
includes the # character, vi replaces that character with the
pathname of the alternate file. If you do not specify a file, the
default is the current file.
flags Indicate actions to be taken after the command is run. It can consist
of leading plus (+) and minus (–) signs to adjust the value of the
current line indicator, followed by p, l, or # to print, list, or number a
line. Thus:
.+5 delete 6 ++#
deletes starting five lines down from dot; six lines are deleted; the
current line indicator is set to the following line, then incremented
by two; and that line is printed with its line number.
Regular Expressions and Replacements
Many ex commands use regular expressions when searching and replacing text. A
regular expression (indicated by pat in the command descriptions) is used to match
a set of characters.
A regular expression consists of a string of normal characters that exactly match
characters in a line. These can be intermixed with special characters (known as
metacharacters), which allow matching in some special manner. Metacharacters
can themselves be matched directly by preceding them with the backslash (\)
character. If the variable magic is turned off, all but two of the metacharacters are
disabled; in this case, the backslash character must precede them to allow their use
as metacharacters. See Appendix C, “Regular Expressions (regexp),” on page 885
for examples.
Summary of Regular Expressions
^ Matches the start of a line. This is only a metacharacter if it is the first
character in the expression.
$ Matches the end of a line. This is only a metacharacter if it is the last
character in the expression.
. Matches any single character.
* Matches zero or more occurrences of the previous expression.
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