edit(1)
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...
DESCRIPTION
The edit utility is a variant of the text editor ex recom-
mended for new or casual users who wish to use a command-
oriented editor. It operates precisely as ex with the fol-
lowing 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 may 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 will tell 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 exist-
ing file, then you will 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
will be printed. If you delete (d) the current line, edit
will print 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 will read 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 will type the first line of the buffer. If you
then execute the command d, edit will delete the first line,
line 2 will become line 1, and edit will print the current
line (the new line 1) so you can see where you are. In gen-
eral, the current line will always be 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 will tell you how many lines there
are in the buffer you are editing and will say [Modified] if
you have changed the buffer. After modifying a file, you can
save the contents of the file by executing a write (w) com-
mand. You can leave the editor by issuing a quit (q) com-
mand. 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 will receive the message No write since
last change (:quit! overrides), and edit will wait 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
will 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 will be restored. You can
also undo an undo command. edit will give you a warning mes-
sage 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 will show 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 will appear in the
middle of the text displayed, and the last line displayed
will become 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 com-
mand 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. Simi-
larly /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).
- | -s
Suppress all interactive user feedback. This is use-
ful when processing editor scripts.
-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. (Recov-
ers the version of filename that was in the buffer
when the crash occurred.)
-t tag
Edit the file containing the tag and position the edi-
tor at its definition.
-v Start up in display editing state using vi. You can
achieve the same effect by simply typing the vi com-
mand itself.
-V Verbose. When ex commands are read by means of stan-
dard input, the input will be echoed to standard
error. This may 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 algo-
rithm 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.
-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.
+command | -c command
Begin editing by executing the specified editor com-
mand (usually a search or positioning command).
The filename argument indicates one or more files to be
edited.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attri-
butes:
/usr/bin/edit
____________________________________________________________
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
| Availability | SUNWcsu |
| CSI | Enabled |
|_____________________________|_____________________________|
/usr/xpg4/bin/edit
____________________________________________________________
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
| Availability | SUNWxcu4 |
| CSI | Enabled |
|_____________________________|_____________________________|
SEE ALSO
ed(1), ex(1), vi(1), attributes(5), XPG4(5)
NOTES
The encryption options are provided with the Security
Administration Utilities package, which is available only in
the United States.
The /usr/xpg4/bin/edit utility is identical to
/usr/bin/edit.
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