Open System Services Porting Guide (G06.24+, H06.03+)

Table Of Contents
The Development Environment
Open System Services Porting Guide520573-006
2-17
Editing OSS Files
Editing OSS Files
The following subsections introduce the vi editor, which is available in the OSS
environment, and the emacs editor, which can be obtained for the OSS environment.
Editing OSS Files Using vi
For tasks such as writing memos and modifying C or C++ programs, editing text files is
one of the most common uses of any computer system. The vi text editor is
particularly well-suited for the day-to-day tasks of most computer users. Using vi, you
can quickly and easily open a file, edit it, and save the results. The vi editor operates
basically the same way on all UNIX based systems, so if you have used vi on a UNIX
system in the past, you should feel at home using it in the OSS environment.
While vi does not have some of the features of proprietary text editors and word
processors, it is a full-featured text editor with the following major features:
Fast processing, especially on start-up and global operations
Full-screen editing and scrolling capability (unlike the line editor ed, on which vi is
based)
Complex editing features such as global substitutions
For more information about the vi utility in the OSS environment refer to the vi(1)
online reference page, the Open System Services Shell and Utilities Reference
Manual, or the Open System Services User’s Guide.
Editing OSS Files Using emacs
Another editor available for the OSS environment is the emacs editor. This editor is not
automatically installed in the OSS environment. Check your system to see whether the
emacs editor is available.
The emacs editor is a customizable, extensible, real-time display editor. Online
documentation is provided with the emacs editor. Press Ctrl-H (Control key plus the H
or h key) to display your options. These options describe information needed to use the
emacs editor.
For more information about the emacs editor, refer to a commercial text.