edit(1) User Commands edit(1)NAMEedit - 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 dis‐
play 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 file‐
name: 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 cur‐
rent 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 charac‐
ters 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 buf‐
fer 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 exe‐
cuting 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 exe‐
cuted 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 buf‐
fer. 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 cur‐
rent 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 for‐
wards 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 chap‐
ter2. 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, pre‐
venting 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 deter‐
mine 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 use‐
ful 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 com‐
mand).
− | -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
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
/usr/bin/edit
┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
│ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
│Availability │SUNWcsu │
│CSI │Enabled │
└─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
/usr/xpg4/bin/edit
┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
│ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
│Availability │SUNWxcu4 │
│CSI │Enabled │
└─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
/usr/xpg6/bin/edit
┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
│ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
│Availability │SUNWxcu6 │
│CSI │Enabled │
└─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
SEE ALSOed(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.
SunOS 5.10 11 Jun 2004 edit(1)
