Traditional Ex - Vi editor

What is Traditional Ex - Vi editor?

The vi editor is a widely used text editor on Unix-based operating systems. Developed in the mid-1970s by Bill Joy at the University of California, Berkeley, vi has remained a staple in the Unix ecosystem, despite the availability of numerous clones and alternative editors. Originally based on the earlier ed editor, vi's source code was previously restricted under a commercial Unix Source Code License, limiting its accessibility. However, in 2002, Caldera removed these usage restrictions, allowing vi to be distributed under a more permissive BSD-style license

Highlights

• Terminal-based interface with powerful editing capabilities
• Support for international character sets and multibyte encodings like UTF-8
• Inclusion of minor enhancements from later vi versions and POSIX.2 standards
• Compact binary size (approximately 160 kBytes on i386) compared to feature-rich clones
• Lack of advanced features such as multiple undo, multiple screens, or syntax highlighting found in some vi-based editors