vi ( /ˈviːˈaɪ/) is a screen-oriented text editor originally created for the Unix operating system. The portable subset of the behavior of vi and programs based on it, and the ex editor language supported within these programs, is described by (and thus standardized by) the Single Unix Specification and POSIX.
The original code for vi was written by Bill Joy in 1976, as the visual mode for a line editor called ex that Joy had written with Chuck Haley. Bill Joy's ex 1.1 was released as part of the first BSD Unix release in March, 1978. It was not until version 2.0 of ex, released as part of Second Berkeley Software Distribution in May, 1979 that the editor was installed under the name vi (which took users straight into ex's visual mode), and the name by which it is known today. 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/ (as in the discrete English letters v and i), or /ˈvaɪ/, but never "six" as in the Roman numeral VI.
In addition to various non-free software implementations of vi distributed with proprietary implementations of Unix, several free and open source software implementations of vi exist. A 2009 survey of Linux Journal readers found that vi was the most widely used text editor among respondents, beating gedit, the second most widely used editor by nearly a factor of two (36% to 19%).
Read more about Vi: Interface, Contemporary Derivatives and Clones
Other articles related to "vi":
... King Edward VI Handsworth School is a grammar school for girls aged 11–18 and is located in Handsworth, Birmingham, England ... It is part of the Foundation of the Schools of King Edward VI ...
... population 44 Mastelići, population 0 Mekiši kod Vižinade, population 39 Nardući, population 19 Ohnići, population 36 Piškovica, population 0 Staniši, population 22 Trombal ...
... Traditional Vi is a port of the original vi to modern Unix systems by Gunnar Ritter ... for those who look for a small but well-defined vi implementation close to that of most commercial Unix systems ... makes the following claims for Traditional Vi Compared to most of its many clones, the original vi is a rather small program (~120 KB code on i386) just with its ...
... Višeslav was one of the first princes or dukes (Croatian Knez) of Littoral Croatia ... the defending forces of the Dalmatian Croatia under the leadership of Croatian duke Višeslav and the invading Frankish army of the Carolingian Empire, the Frankish commander Eric of ... Višeslav left behind a baptismal font (in Croatian Višeslavova krstionica), surviving to this day, which remains an important symbol of early Croatian history and the ...