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 VILE(1)                                                             VILE(1)




 NAME
      vile, xvile, uxvile, lxvile - VI Like Emacs

 SYNOPSIS
      vile [@cmdfile] [+command] [-FhIiRVv] [-gNNN] [-kcryptkey] [-spattern]
      [-ttag] [filename]...

 DESCRIPTION
      vile is a text editor.  This man page is fairly terse.  More
      information can be obtained from the internal help, available with the
      -h option or by using the ":help" command from within vile.

      xvile is the same text editor, built as an X-windows application, with
      fully integrated mouse support, scrollbars, etc.

      uxvile is a wrapper around xvile which invokes the latter program with
      the correct locale environment required to use a unicode character set
      and the "UXVile" X resource class set.

      lxvile is a wrapper around xvile which invokes the latter program with
      a font chosen to match the current locale environment.

 SPIRIT
      vile retains the "finger-feel", if you will, of vi, while adding the
      multiple buffer and multiple window features of emacs and other
      editors.  It is definitely not a vi clone, in that some substantial
      stuff is missing, and the screen doesn't look quite the same.  The
      things that you tend to type over and over probably work.  Things done
      less frequently, like configuring a startup file, are somewhat (or
      very, depending on how ambitious you are) different.  But what matters
      most is that one's "muscle memory" does the right thing to the text in
      front of you, and that is what vile tries to do for vi users.

 OPTIONS
      Vile accumulates most options into two temporary buffers [vileinit]
      and [vileopts].  The former is executed before reading the first file
      into a buffer.  The latter is executed after reading the first file
      into a buffer.  Each is removed after executing (unless an error is
      detected).

    COMMON OPTIONS
      -ccommand
           vile will begin the session on the first file invoking the given
           command.  Legal commands include many ex-style commands, vile-
           commands, etc., subject to shell quoting.  This option is used
           most often with a line number or search pattern.  For example

                vile -c123 filename
                vile -c/pattern filename





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 VILE(1)                                                             VILE(1)




           They correspond to ex-style commands on the given file:

                :123
                :/pattern

           These are more verbose equivalents:

                vile -c'123 goto-line' filename
                vile -c'search-forward /pattern/' filename

           You can use more than one command, e.g.,

                vile -c'123' -c'10*goto-col' filename

           to put the cursor on column 10 of line 123.  The "*" (or ":")
           separates the repeat count (used by goto-col) from the line- or
           range-specification used by line-oriented commands.

      @cmdfile
           vile will run the specified file as its startup file, and will
           bypass any normal startup file (i.e.  .vilerc) or environment
           variable (i.e.  $VILEINIT).  This is added to [vileinit].

      -D   tells vile to trace the results of macro execution into the
           hidden buffer "[Trace]".

      -e | -E
           Invokes vile in "noview" mode - changes are permitted to any
           buffer while in this mode (see "-v").

      -F   will run the syntax filter that applies to each filename on the
           command-line, and write the attributed text to the standard
           output.

      -h   Invokes vile on the helpfile.

      -i | -I
           Tells vile to use vileinit.rc (which is installed) as the
           initialization file.  If you do not have a .vilerc, vile will
           make a short one that sources vileinit.rc This is added to
           [vileinit].

      -k cryptkey | -K cryptkey
           Specifies an encryption/decryption key.  See below for further
           discussion.  This option applies only locally to the buffers
           named on the command-line, and is not added to [vileopts], since
           that is executed too late.

      -R   Invokes vile in "readonly" mode - no writes are permitted while
           in this mode.  (This will also be true if vile is invoked as
           view, or if "readonly" mode is set in the startup file.)



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 VILE(1)                                                             VILE(1)




      -s pattern | -S pattern
           In the first file, vile will execute an initial search for the
           given pattern.  This is not the same as "-c/pattern", since that
           positions the cursor to the line matching the pattern.  This
           option positions the cursor within the line.

      -t tag
           vile will edit the correct file and move the cursor to the
           location of the tag.  This requires a tagsfile created with the
           ctags(1) command.  The option -T is equivalent, and can be used
           when X11 option parsing eats the -t.

      -v   Invokes vile in "view" mode - no changes are permitted to any
           buffer while in this mode (see "-e").

      -V   vile will report its version number.

      -25 -43 -50 -60
           On PC systems you may be able to set the initial screen
           resolution from the command line.

      -80 -132
           On VMS systems you may be able to set the initial screen
           resolution from the command line.  See vile.hlp for details.

    X11 OPTIONS
      xvile-specific command-line options are detailed in the help file (see
      "Standard X command line arguments").  The standard ones (e.g.
      -display, -fn, -geometry, -name, etc.) are all supported.

    OBSOLETE OPTIONS
      vile recognizes some options which duplicate the functionality of the
      POSIX "-c" option:

      +command
           This has the same effect as "-ccommand".

      -g NNN | -G NNN
           This has the same effect as "-cNNN".  vile will begin the session
           on the first file jumping to the given line number NNN.

 INVOCATION
      vile will edit the files specified on the command line.  If no files
      are specified, and standard input is not connected to a terminal, then
      vile will bring up a buffer containing the output of the pipe it is
      connected to, and will re-open /dev/tty for commands.  Files (except
      for the first) are not actually read into buffers until "visited".
      All buffers are kept in memory: machines with not much memory or swap
      space may have trouble with this.





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 VILE(1)                                                             VILE(1)




 STARTUP
      If the @cmdfile option is given, then the file given as "cmdfile" will
      be run before any files are loaded.  If no @ option appears, startup
      commands will be taken from the user's VILEINIT variable, if it is
      set, from the file .vilerc in the current directory, if it exists, or
      from $HOME/.vilerc, as a last resort.  See the help file for examples
      of what sorts of things might go into these command files.

 COMMANDS
      Please refer to the help available within vile for vile-specific
      commands.  (That document, however, assumes familiarity with vi.)
      Short descriptions of each vile command may be obtained with the
      ":describe-function" and ":describe-key" commands.  All commands may
      be listed with ":show-commands".

      Additional documentation on writing macros using the internal
      scripting language can be found in the file macros.doc, distributed
      with the vile source.

 RELATED PROGRAMS
      vile may also be built and installed as xvile, in which case it
      behaves as a native X Windows application, with scrollbars, better
      mouse support, etc.  The help file has more information on this.

      There is a program distributed with the vile source which is usually
      installed as vile-manfilt.  (Two versions of the source for vile-
      manfilt are available, in C (manfilt.c) and in Perl (manfilt.pl).) It
      may be used in conjunction with vile or xvile (with the help of the
      macro in the file manpage.rc) to filter and view system manual pages.
      xvile will even (with your font set properly) display certain portions
      of the manual page text in bold or italics as appropriate.  See the
      help file for details.

      Likewise, there are several language filters, e.g., vile-c-filt for C,
      which can embolden, underline, or perform coloring on program source
      code.  Again, see the help file for more information.

 ENCRYPTION
      The program vile-crypt can be used to encrypt/decrypt files using the
      same algorithm as microEmac's internal crypt algorithm.  This program,
      which uses public domain code written by by Dana Hoggatt, is no longer
      used in vile, though it is provided for compatibility.

      vile currently uses the crypt(3) function for encryption/decryption,
      which is available on most Unix systems.  This ensures that vile is
      able to read and write files compatibly with vi (but not vim, which
      uses an different algorithm derived from info-zip).  The editor's
      encryption/decryption key can be specified on the command line with
      "-k key".  Text to be encrypted can be specified as filenames on the
      command line, or provided as the standard input.  On systems with a
      getpass() library routine, the user will be prompted for the



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 VILE(1)                                                             VILE(1)




      encryption key if it is not given on the command line.  To accommodate
      systems (such as linux) where the getpass() library routine is not
      interruptible from the keyboard, entering a crypt-key password which
      ends in ^C will cause the program to quit.  See the help file for more
      information on vile's encryption support, including a discussion of a
      collection of macros that interface with GNU's gpg package.

 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
      VILEINIT
           Editor initialization commands in lieu of a startup file.  These
           are copied into [vileinit], and executed.

      VILE_HELP_FILE
           Override the name of the help file, normally ``vile.hlp''.

      VILE_LIBDIR_PATH
           Augment $PATH when searching for a filter program.

      VILE_STARTUP_FILE
           Override the name of the startup file, normally ``.vilerc'' (or
           ``vile.rc'' for non-UNIX systems).

      VILE_STARTUP_PATH
           Override the search path for the startup and help files.

 SEE ALSO
      Your favorite vi document, the file macros.doc, and the vile help
      page, available with the -h option or as the text file vile.hlp.

 DEBTS and CREDITS
      vile was originally built from a copy of microEmacs, so a large debt
      of gratitude is due to the developers of that program.  A lot of
      people have helped with code and bug reports on vile.  Names are named
      at the bottom of the help file.

 AUTHORS
      vile was created by Paul Fox, Tom Dickey, and Kevin Buettner.

 BUGS
      The "VI Like Emacs" joke isn't really funny.  It only sounds that way.
      :-)   Other suspicious behavior should be reported via the project
      mailing list, or via the web-based bug reporting system.  Both of
      these are available here:

      https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/vile









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