Because vi is built on top of the ex line editor, you get all the power of a line editor as well. Any experienced vi user issues ex commands all the time - but usually one by one, at the colon prompt.
The one exception is the .exrc file (30.6), which is, at bottom, a list of commands for ex to run on startup - in short, an editor script.
What many beginners don't know is that you can save a sequence of
ex commands in any file, and execute it with the
:so
command (33.4).
For example, Bruce Barnett
uses this trick to
set himself up specially for
editing FORTRAN programs (31.11).
In general,
sed (34.24)
is better for general-purpose batch editing - such as making a set of
global substitutions over and over again on multiple files - therefore,
:so
is most often used for reading in setup commands.
Keep
in
mind though; any time you find yourself issuing the same
commands over and over again, think script!
-