I was trying to have vi command-line functionality within my script (not by launching vi with a temporary file), and after following a suggestion about the Term::ReadLine::Gnu, but I found that it didn't work exactly the way I wanted, or I didn't know how to use it. However, this is exactly what I want and I'm using it correctly -> Term::ReadLine::Zoid All vi functionality including an automatic history buffer is contained in it. Thanks guys.