Editing options

vi has many options that change the way the editor behaves during an editing session. We will discuss a few that may be immediately useful. For a complete list of these options, see the vi command description in z/OS UNIX System Services Command Reference.

You must be in Command Mode to set options. To set an option, begin by typing a colon (:). You will see the cursor move to the bottom of the screen. Then type the word set, a space, and the name of the option you want to set—we will talk about option names in a moment. You can correct typing mistakes by backspacing. When you have typed everything correctly, press <Enter>.

One commonly used option is "ignorecase". If you type:
:set ignorecase
vi does not pay attention to the case of letters when searching. Many people prefer caseless searches over case-sensitive ones. If you want to go back to case-sensitive searches, type
:set noignorecase