


      EDIT(1)                     (bsd 4.1)                     EDIT(1)



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

      SYNTAX
           edit [ -r ] name ...

      DESCRIPTION
           Edit is a variant of the text editor ex recommended for new
           or casual users who wish to use a command oriented editor.
           The following brief introduction should help you get started
           with edit. See ex(1) for other useful documents; in
           particular, if you are using a CRT terminal you will want to
           learn about the display editor vi.

      BRIEF INTRODUCTION
           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 which you can then edit, and tells you how many
           lines and characters are in the file.  To create a new file,
           just make up a name for the file and try to run edit on it;
           you will cause an error diagnostic, but don't worry.

           Edit prompts for commands with the character `:', 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).
           Most edit commands perform their actions on the ``current
           line'' unless otherwise specified.  So, if you enter print
           (or abbreviated p) and press RETURN, this current line will
           be printed.  If you delete (d) the current line, edit will
           print the new current line.  When you start editing, edit
           makes the last line of the file the current line.  If you
           delete this last line, then the new last line becomes the
           current one.  In general, after a delete, the next line in
           the file becomes the current line.  (Deleting the last line
           is a special case.)

           If you start with an empty file, or wish to add some new
           lines, then the append (a) command can be used.  After you
           enter this command (and press RETURN after the word append)
           edit reads lines from the terminal until you give a line
           consisting of just a ``.'', placing 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 give before, rather than after, the
           current line.

           Edit numbers the lines in the buffer, with the first line
           having number 1.  If you give the command ``1'' then edit
           will type this first line.  If you then give the command
           delete edit will delete the first line, and line 2 will
           become line 1, and edit will print the current line (the new



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           line 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.  You say ``s/old/new/''
           where old is replaced by the old characters you want to get
           rid of and new is the new characters you want to replace it
           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 it.  After modifying a file you can put the
           buffer text back to replace the file by giving a write (w)
           command.  You can then leave the editor by issuing a quit
           (q) command.  If you run edit on a file, but don't 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 be warned that there
           has been ``No write since last change'' and edit will await
           another command.  If you wish not to write the buffer out
           then you can issue another quit command.  The buffer is then
           irretrievably discarded, and you return to the shell.

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

           The change (c) command will change the current line to a
           sequence of lines you supply (as in append you give lines up
           to a line consisting of only a ``.'').  You can tell change
           to change more than one line by giving the line numbers of
           the lines you want to change, i.e. ``3,5change''.  You can
           print lines this way too.  Thus ``1,23p'' prints the first
           23 lines of the file.

           The undo (u) command will reverse the effect of the last
           command you gave which changed the buffer.  Thus if give a
           substitute command which doesn't do what you want, you can
           say undo and the old contents of the line will be restored.
           You can also undo an undo command so that you can continue
           to change your mind.  Edit will give you a warning message
           when commands you do affect more than one line of the
           buffer.  If the amount of change seems unreasonable, you
           should consider doing an undo and looking to see what
           happened.  If you decide that the change is ok, then you can
           undo again to get it back.  Note that commands such as write
           and quit cannot be undone.

           To look at the next line in the buffer, just press RETURN.
           To look at a number of lines, press ^D (control key and D)



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           rather than RETIRN.  This will show you a half screen of
           lines on a CRT or 12 lines on a hardcopy terminal.  You can
           look at the text around where you are by giving the command
           ``z.''.  The current line will then be the last line
           printed; you can get back to the line where you were before
           the ``z.'' command by saying ``''''.  The z command can also
           be given other following characters ``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 do, e.g., ``z.12'' to get 12 lines total.  This method
           of giving counts works in general; thus you can delete 5
           lines starting with the current line with the command
           ``delete 5''.

           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 the text it
           wraps, end 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 a symbolic name ``.''; this is most
           useful in a range of lines as in ``.,$print'' which prints
           the rest of the lines in the file.  To get to the last line
           in the file you can refer to it by its symbolic name ``$''.
           Thus the command ``$ delete'' or ``$d'' deletes the last
           line in the file, no matter which line was the current line
           before.  Arithmetic with line references is also possible.
           Thus the line ``$-5'' is the fifth before the last, and
           ``.+20'' is 20 lines after the present.

           You can find out which line you are at by doing ``.=''.
           This is useful if you wish to move or copy a section of text
           within a file or between files.  Find out the first and last
           line numbers you wish to copy or move (say 10 to 20).  For a
           move you can then say ``10,20delete a'' which deletes these
           lines from the file and places them in a buffer named a.
           Edit has 26 such buffers named a through z. You can later
           get these lines back by doing ``put a'' to put the contents
           of buffer a after the current line.  If you want to move or
           copy these lines between files you can give an edit (e)
           command after copying the lines, following it with the name
           of the other file you wish to edit, i.e. ``edit chapter2''.
           By changing delete to yank above you can get a pattern for
           copying lines.  If the text you wish to move or copy is all



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           within one file then you can just say ``10,20move $'' for
           example.  It is not necessary to use named buffers in this
           case (but you can if you wish).

      SEE ALSO
           ex(1), vi(1),

      BUGS
           See ex(1).














































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