editing history list in ksh

[Alan S. Driscoll]

> Does the Korn shell spawn a new vi or emacs process every time you want
> to edit some command in the history list?  This strikes me as inefficient,
> particularly on architectures where forking is slow.  Or does ksh have
> a subset of vi built in?

No forking is done.  Instead, a subset of 'emacs' is built into the ksh.
(There is also a subset of 'vi' for the masochist.)  The command line is
treated as a one line window into the history list. In emacs mode, typing
^P replaces the current command line with the previous command, typing ^R
allows a reverse search through the history list, and so on.
-- 

	Alan S. Driscoll
	AT&T Bell Laboratories