The ex editor is often touted as an enhancement and simplification of ed. I would like to know what specific enhancements and simplifications it offers. GNU ed, for example, offers extended regular expressions. So, besides these, what advantages come with ex? I am thinking specifically of the original ex editor by Bill Joy, not later incarnations in Vim.
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Edman
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2This is a rather big question and depends on what implementation of `ex` you're looking at (I mean, Vim in `ex` mode is pretty much a totally different editor compared to what the POSIX standard prescribes for `ex`, and the difference between that and `ed` are simply too numerous to list). Also, "advantages" is a matter of opinion. – Kusalananda Jun 24 '22 at 21:09
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You could start with the `ex` man page from 2BSD in 1979. – Stéphane Chazelas Jun 25 '22 at 18:44
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As a very rough first approximation we can say that ed doesn't show what has been modified (until asked to print) and ex could (additionally) work as a full screen editor. Using a very old description from the the posix spec:
The ed utility is a line-oriented text editor that uses two modes: command mode and input mode. In command mode the input characters shall be interpreted as commands, and in input mode they shall be interpreted as text.
The ex utility is a line-oriented text editor. There are two other modes of the editor-open and visual-in which screen-oriented editing is available.
Both programs have been extended, modified and improved over the years and now the list of differences is much longer and impossible to fully list on a short answer of this site.
That full-screen capability has lead to the development of vi (a visual editor), and then to vim (visual improved).
QuartzCristal
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