Vi

vi is a family of screen-oriented text editors which share certain characteristics, such as methods of invocation from the operating system command interpreter, and characteristic user interface features. The portable subset of the behavior of vi programs, and the ex editor language supported within these programs, is described by, and thus standardized by the Single Unix Specification and POSIX. The original vi program was written by Bill Joy in... more

vi is a family of screen-oriented text editors which share certain characteristics, such as methods of invocation from the operating system command interpreter, and characteristic user interface features. The portable subset of the behavior of vi programs, and the ex editor language supported within these programs, is described by, and thus standardized by the Single Unix Specification and POSIX. The original vi program was written by Bill Joy in 1976 for an early BSD Unix release. Some current implementations of vi can trace their source code ancestry to Bill Joy; others are completely new, largely compatible reimplementations. The name vi is derived from the shortest unambiguous abbreviation for the command visual in ex; the command in question switches the line editor ex to visual mode. The name vi is pronounced /ˈviːˈaɪ/, or /vaɪ/, but never "six" as in the Roman numeral VI. Many popular implementations of vi are free and open source software, including some based on source code... less