Questions tagged [ex-command]
ex is an advanced version of the standard Unix editor ed. It is the direct predecessor of vi.
32
questions
1
vote
2
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82
views
Ex global command is silenced, why is execution still stopped on error (Neovim)?
I have a sample text:
123
456
If I delete the first line, why does
:silent! execute 'g/123/d' | execute 'g/456/d'
work while
:silent! g/123/d | g/456/d
doesn't work, unless I bring back the first ...
- 11
0
votes
2
answers
79
views
Print lines between the first "sta" and last "end" (boundaries included); fallback to file boundaries if missing
Requirements
In a batch manner, i.e., with ex, vim -e or vim -E, I want to print all lines between line b1 and line b2, boundaries included.
b1 is:
The first line with a "sta" match, if ...
- 2,416
0
votes
0
answers
60
views
Ex - silent mode won't read commands from a file when stdin is redirected
I'm starting vim in Ex mode, silent mode, on Windows 10, in a standard command prompt window. I'm trying to re-direct stdin from a file. I'm using the terminal version of vim 8.2.2824. It doesn't ...
0
votes
1
answer
53
views
How to pass argument to a ex command after chaining it with <bar>?
I'm trying to make my life easier with vim fugitive and ex command line, by creating an abbreviation to a frequent task, which is switching to develop, pulling it and creating new branch.
That's my ...
- 111
2
votes
1
answer
47
views
Leading colons and whitespaces in Ex commands
Apparently, multiple colons are simply ignored when executing Ex commands. For example,
:set number!
:::set number!
: : :set number!
all toggle line numbers. Is this really a consolidated rule? ...
- 2,416
2
votes
1
answer
150
views
Use cases of ":rewind"? How does it differ from ":b1"?
After reading :help :rewind
:rew[ind] [++opt] [+cmd]
Start editing the first file in the argument list.
This fails when changes have been made and Vim does
not want to |abandon| the ...
- 2,416
4
votes
4
answers
2k
views
Filter specific lines matching a pattern through external command
I'm trying to filter specific lines through external command. I think knowing how to do this would be extremely beneficial to me, so I'm trying to find a way to do this. As an example, I wanted to ...
- 59
2
votes
1
answer
133
views
What is the meaning of "#" in ":g/pattern/z#.5"
Like the title, What is the meaning of # in :g/pattern/z#.5.
:g/pattern/z#.5 and :g/pattern/z.5return the same output for me.
In addition, If I want to help description of # with :h command, how to ...
- 135
0
votes
1
answer
46
views
How may I create an excmd that has a signature like g, s, v commands? (`:cmd/str1/str2/options`)
A g command can find the lines globally and then apply actions, like the following would find lines that contain foo and delete those lines: :g/foo/d
An s command is more well-known for its ...
- 472
1
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0
answers
101
views
Is it possible to copy block (given by range) multiple times in a single command?
Is there a way to copy a few times a given block from command-line mode, e.g. with the :t command?
For example, how to copy the two lines (block) above the cursor -2,-1 to the current position ., 3 ...
- 336
9
votes
1
answer
2k
views
How to go back to beginning of the line in (ex) command mode?
The standard CTRL-E works to go to the end of the line but CTRL-A doesn't seem to work to go to the beginnig.
It would obviously be useful to quickly go to the beginning of line for example if one ...
- 193
3
votes
1
answer
1k
views
How to negate substitution pattern?
I've the following sample INI file:
Foo=1
Bar=1
Baz=1
Qux=1
and my goal is to set all options to 0 except Foo.
To disable one selected line, I know that I can run:
%s/Foo=\zs.*$/0/
Test command ...
- 18.2k
1
vote
2
answers
101
views
Using more than two line specifiers in an ex-range
Under :help [range] it states:
Some Ex commands accept a line range in front of them. This is noted as
[range]. It consists of one or more line specifiers, separated with ',' or
';'.
I am ...
- 2,095
2
votes
1
answer
466
views
Print current line number to stdout using ex
I often use ex in scripted edits. I can run several editing commands, and then save the changed file, with no danger of hanging if an ex command encounters an error, by running commands like so:
...
- 4,364
7
votes
4
answers
7k
views
Replace with hex character
Given this file:
printf 'hello\x19world\n' > hello.txt
I can replace a hex character:
$ ex -sc '%s/\%x19/ /|x' hello.txt
$ od -c hello.txt
0000000 h e l l o w o r l d \n
...
- 1
14
votes
3
answers
5k
views
How can I change the default grep call (grepprg) to exclude directories?
I am trying to change the default grep call to avoid unnecessary plugin installation. What I want from vim is to call the external search using the builtin command :grep with custom arguments, this is ...
- 293
1
vote
2
answers
263
views
File emptied when command not found
Given this command:
ex -sc '%!alfa' -cx file
I get this result:
sh: alfa: command not found
which is to be expected. However an unintended side effect of this is that the
file is emptied and saved....
- 1
3
votes
2
answers
95
views
Break long comments
Given the file alfa.c:
// Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, apeirian constituam interpretaris no his, soluta salutandi persequeris vel ne, facete impedit contentiones te eam. Ut utamur habemus qualisque ...
- 1
0
votes
1
answer
58
views
Save view after execute command?
I'm mostly developing with python. I'm using pdbpp as python debugger so I'm contantly adding
import pdb;pdb.set_trace()
or
import pdb
pdb.set_trace()
So I wrote couple of functions.
function! ...
- 1,141
1
vote
1
answer
1k
views
Replace every other line
Given file alfa.txt:
10
11
12
13
I can remove every other line:
$ ex -sc 'g/^/+d' -cx alfa.txt
$ cat alfa.txt
10
12
However I cannot replace every other line:
$ ex -sc 'g/^/+s//> /' -cx alfa....
- 1
2
votes
1
answer
524
views
Global append lines
Given file alfa.txt:
10
11
12
13
I would like to append a line of text after every line. This is simple enough
with sed:
$ sed aBRAVO alfa.txt
10
BRAVO
11
BRAVO
12
BRAVO
13
BRAVO
However I am ...
- 1
2
votes
1
answer
286
views
argdo command hanging
I am interested in editing multiple files. Using this answer:
How to edit files non-interactively (e.g. in pipeline)?
I came up with my own test case:
seq 10 14 | tee pa.txt > qu.txt
ex -sc '...
- 1
6
votes
2
answers
690
views
Invert range selection
I can remove the last 10 lines like this:
ex -sc '-9,d|x' f.txt
However, I would like to invert the selection, or remove all lines except the
last 10. Is this possible?
- 1
3
votes
2
answers
936
views
Insert blank line after different lines
Given file alfa.txt:
foxtrot
golf
hotel
india
juliet
I would like to insert a newline after lines 2 and 4. I have this command:
ex -sc '2pu_|4pu_|x' alfa.txt
However it is inserting lines after ...
- 1
5
votes
2
answers
974
views
How to repeat the last command in Ex?
I've the file, like:
name = foo
# unknown number of lines ...
features_exclude[rules_config][] = rule1
features_exclude[rules_config][] = rule2
features_exclude[rules_config][] = rule3
...
- 18.2k
9
votes
2
answers
562
views
Use ex-command to check whether two lines are identical?
I was looking at this
question and then
wondered how I might implement my answer which uses
sed using purely
POSIX
ex.
The trick is that while in sed I can compare the hold space with
the pattern ...
- 4,364
2
votes
3
answers
107
views
Why aren't :g/X/d changes saved in Ex?
I've the following file (which is a simplification of the hosts file):
126.0.0.1
127.0.0.1
128.0.0.1
and I'm trying to invoke the following command:
ex +g/127/d -cwq file
which is supposed to ...
- 18.2k
5
votes
2
answers
4k
views
How to use "-c" command line option?
Fully realizing the heritage of vi, I know that its predecessor (ex) could be, and was, used for command line processing of files ("sed-style", if you like).
The manpage says:
-c {command}
{...
- 789
1
vote
0
answers
70
views
using ex with perl support
I've just learnt how to run perl commands within vi, but I had to install vim.gtk in order to have perl support. But I want to incorporate these perl commands into bash scripts that call ex. Is ...
- 715
11
votes
6
answers
2k
views
How to append some line at the end of the file only if it's not there yet?
I'd like to edit a file in-place by appending a line, only if doesn't exist yet to make my script bullet-proof.
Normally I'd do something like:
cat >> ~/.bashrc <<EOF
export PATH=~/....
- 18.2k
4
votes
1
answer
517
views
Delete text after match in Ex?
I've sample file like:
aa
bb
cc
dd
ee
ff
and I'd like to remove everything till the matched line dd.
Normally in Vim I type: d/dd then Enter and it works.
When using in ex, it doesn't work as ...
- 18.2k
2
votes
1
answer
762
views
How to remove inner content of html tag conditionally?
I've html file (e.g. curl -o page.html http://example.com/) where I would like to remove inner html block for given html tag.
I've the following code which works:
$ ex -V1 page.html <<-EOF
/&...
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