illumos: manual page: edit.1

EDIT(1HAS) User Commands EDIT(1HAS)

NAME

edit - text editor (variant of ex for casual users)

SYNOPSIS

/usr/bin/edit [-| -s] [-l] [-L] [-R] [-r [filename]]
[-t tag] [-v] [-V] [-x] [-wn] [-C]
[+command | -c command] filename...

/usr/xpg4/bin/edit [-| -s] [-l] [-L] [-R] [-r [filename]]
[-t tag] [-v] [-V] [-x] [-wn] [-C]
[+command | -c command] filename...

/usr/xpg6/bin/edit [-| -s] [-l] [-L] [-R] [-r [filename]]
[-t tag] [-v] [-V] [-x] [-wn] [-C]
[+command | -c command] filename...

DESCRIPTION

The edit utility is a variant of the text editor ex recommended for new
or casual users who wish to use a command-oriented editor. It operates
precisely as ex with the following options automatically set:

novice
ON

report
ON

showmode
ON

magic
OFF

The following brief introduction should help you get started with edit.
If you are using a CRT terminal you might want to learn about the display
editor vi.

To edit the contents of an existing file you begin with the command edit
name to the shell. edit makes a copy of the file that you can then edit,
and tells you how many lines and characters are in the file. To create a
new file, you also begin with the command edit with a filename: edit
name; the editor tells you it is a [New File].

The edit command prompt is the colon (:), which you should see after
starting the editor. If you are editing an existing file, then you have
some lines in edit's buffer (its name for the copy of the file you are
editing). When you start editing, edit makes the last line of the file
the current line. Most commands to edit use the current line if you do
not tell them which line to use. Thus if you say print (which can be
abbreviated p) and type carriage return (as you should after all edit
commands), the current line is printed. If you delete (d) the current
line, edit prints the new current line, which is usually the next line in
the file. If you delete the last line, then the new last line becomes the
current one.

If you start with an empty file or wish to add some new lines, then the
append (a) command can be used. After you execute this command (typing a
carriage return after the word append), edit reads lines from your
terminal until you type a line consisting of just a dot (.); it places
these lines after the current line. The last line you type then becomes
the current line. The insert (i) command is like append, but places the
lines you type before, rather than after, the current line.

The edit utility numbers the lines in the buffer, with the first line
having number 1. If you execute the command 1, then edit types the first
line of the buffer. If you then execute the command d, edit deletes the
first line, line 2 becomes line 1, and edit prints the current line (the
new line 1) so you can see where you are. In general, the current line is
always the last line affected by a command.

You can make a change to some text within the current line by using the
substitute (s) command: s/old/new/ where old is the string of characters
you want to replace and new is the string of characters you want to
replace old with.

The filename (f) command tells you how many lines there are in the buffer
you are editing and says [Modified] if you have changed the buffer. After
modifying a file, you can save the contents of the file by executing a
write (w) command. You can leave the editor by issuing a quit (q)
command. If you run edit on a file, but do not change it, it is not
necessary (but does no harm) to write the file back. If you try to quit
from edit after modifying the buffer without writing it out, you receive
the message No write since last change (:quit! overrides), and edit
waits for another command. If you do not want to write the buffer out,
issue the quit command followed by an exclamation point (q!). The buffer
is then irretrievably discarded and you return to the shell.

By using the d and a commands and giving line numbers to see lines in the
file, you can make any changes you want. You should learn at least a few
more things, however, if you use edit more than a few times.

The change (c) command changes the current line to a sequence of lines
you supply (as in append, you type lines up to a line consisting of only
a dot (.). You can tell change to change more than one line by giving the
line numbers of the lines you want to change, that is, 3,5c. You can
print lines this way too: 1,23p prints the first 23 lines of the file.

The undo (u) command reverses the effect of the last command you executed
that changed the buffer. Thus if you execute a substitute command that
does not do what you want, type u and the old contents of the line are
restored. You can also undo an undo command. edit gives you a warning
message when a command affects more than one line of the buffer. Note
that commands such as write and quit cannot be undone.

To look at the next line in the buffer, type carriage return. To look at
a number of lines, type ^D (while holding down the control key, press d)
rather than carriage return. This shows you a half-screen of lines on a
CRT or 12 lines on a hardcopy terminal. You can look at nearby text by
executing the z command. The current line appears in the middle of the
text displayed, and the last line displayed becomes the current line; you
can get back to the line where you were before you executed the z command
by typing ''. The z command has other options: z- prints a screen of text
(or 24 lines) ending where you are; z+ prints the next screenful. If you
want less than a screenful of lines, type z.11 to display five lines
before and five lines after the current line. (Typing z.n, when n is an
odd number, displays a total of n lines, centered about the current line;
when n is an even number, it displays n-1 lines, so that the lines
displayed are centered around the current line.) You can give counts
after other commands; for example, you can delete 5 lines starting with
the current line with the command d5.

To find things in the file, you can use line numbers if you happen to
know them; since the line numbers change when you insert and delete lines
this is somewhat unreliable. You can search backwards and forwards in the
file for strings by giving commands of the form /text/ to search forward
for text or ?text? to search backward for text. If a search reaches the
end of the file without finding text, it wraps around and continues to
search back to the line where you are. A useful feature here is a search
of the form /^text/ which searches for text at the beginning of a line.
Similarly /text$/ searches for text at the end of a line. You can leave
off the trailing / or ? in these commands.

The current line has the symbolic name dot (.); this is most useful in a
range of lines as in .,$p which prints the current line plus the rest of
the lines in the file. To move to the last line in the file, you can
refer to it by its symbolic name $. Thus the command $d deletes the last
line in the file, no matter what the current line is. Arithmetic with
line references is also possible. Thus the line $-5 is the fifth before
the last and .+20 is 20 lines after the current line.

You can find out the current line by typing `.='. This is useful if you
wish to move or copy a section of text within a file or between files.
Find the first and last line numbers you wish to copy or move. To move
lines 10 through 20, type 10,20d a to delete these lines from the file
and place them in a buffer named a. edit has 26 such buffers named a
through z. To put the contents of buffer a after the current line, type
put a. If you want to move or copy these lines to another file, execute
an edit (e) command after copying the lines; following the e command with
the name of the other file you wish to edit, that is, edit chapter2. To
copy lines without deleting them, use yank (y) in place of d. If the text
you wish to move or copy is all within one file, it is not necessary to
use named buffers. For example, to move lines 10 through 20 to the end of
the file, type 10,20m $.

OPTIONS

These options can be turned on or off using the set command in ex(1).

-C
Encryption option; same as the -x option,
except that vi simulates the C command of ex.
The C command is like the X command of ex,
except that all text read in is assumed to have
been encrypted.

-l
Set up for editing LISP programs.

-L
List the name of all files saved as the result
of an editor or system crash.

-R
Readonly mode; the readonly flag is set,
preventing accidental overwriting of the file.

-r filename
Edit filename after an editor or system crash.
(Recovers the version of filename that was in
the buffer when the crash occurred.)

-t tag
Edit the file containing the tag and position
the editor at its definition.

-v
Start up in display editing state using vi. You
can achieve the same effect by simply typing
the vi command itself.

-V
Verbose. When ex commands are read by means of
standard input, the input is echoed to standard
error. This can be useful when processing ex
commands within shell scripts.

-x
Encryption option; when used, edit simulates
the X command of ex and prompts the user for a
key. This key is used to encrypt and decrypt
text using the algorithm of the crypt command.
The X command makes an educated guess to
determine whether text read in is encrypted or
not. The temporary buffer file is encrypted
also, using a transformed version of the key
typed in for the -x option.

-wn
Set the default window size to n. This is
useful when using the editor over a slow speed
line.

+command | -c command
Begin editing by executing the specified editor
command (usually a search or positioning
command).

- | -s
Suppress all interactive user feedback. This
is useful when processing editor scripts.

The filename argument indicates one or more files to be edited.

ATTRIBUTES

NOTES