edit(1) 							   User Commands							   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...

       /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 oper-
       ates 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  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 char-
       acters 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  buf-
       fer.  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! over-
       rides), 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  cen-
       tered  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 trans-
			       formed 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

       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 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.

SunOS 5.10							    11 Jun 2004 							   edit(1)