edit(1) CLIX edit(1)
NAME
edit - Runs a command-oriented editor (an ex variant)
SYNOPSIS
edit [-r] [-x] [-C] name ...
FLAGS
These flags can be turned on or off with the set command in ex.
-r Recover file after an editor or system crash.
-x Encryption flag; when used the file will be encrypted as it is being
written and will require an encryption key to be read. The edit
command makes an educated guess to determine if a file is encrypted
or not. See crypt. Also, see the WARNING section at the end of this
manual page.
-C Encryption flag; the same as -x except that edit assumes files are
encrypted.
DESCRIPTION
The edit command runs a variant of the ex text editor 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 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. The edit command 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 existing 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
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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 newlines, 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 command insert (i) is like append, but places the
lines you type before, rather than after, the current line.
The command edit 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 newline 1) so you can see where you are. In general,
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 command file (f) 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) 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 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
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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. The edit command will give
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 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 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. The edit command 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
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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 $.
EXAMPLES
1. To edit the file foo:
edit foo
2. To edit the file foo in read only mode, using encryption:
edit -r -x foo
CAUTION
The encryption options are provided with the Security Administration
Utilities package, which is available only in the United States.
EXIT VALUES
The edit command returns a value of 0 if successful. If unsuccessful,
edit will return one of the following values:
1 System error
2 Other error
-1 User not found
RELATED INFORMATION
Commands: ed(1), ex(1), vi(1)
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