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ED Editor#

ed is the standard line oriented editor available on all Unix / Linux systems. It also comes with Mac OS/X, and is available for Windows.

ed is a line oriented editor (as apposed to a screen oriented editor). It requires no graphics and works on text one line at a time.

To evoke ed you use: ed myfile.txt

Note, the stuff in the () below represents a range of lines to be operated on. The stuff shown in the parenthesis is the default - what is used if you don't include an address range. If you do include it, don't use the parenthesis.

ed commands#

Save and quit commands#

(1,$)w write (save) file
(1,$)wq write and quit
(1,$)w FILE write (save) to new file
(1,$)wq FILE write to new file and quit
q quit
Q quit - ignore changes
e FILE edit new file (erase prior contents)
E FILE edit new file even of old file changed
f FILE change current file name to FILE
($)r FILE read FILE into existing text

Displaying text#

(.,.)p print lines
(.,.)n print lines with line numbers
(.,.)l list lines (display control characters)

Changing the current line#

. current line
N goto line N
$ last line
, or % all lines
.+1 current line plus 1
return move to and display next line
- previous line
+N N'th next line
-N N'th previous line
; .,$
/re/ find regular expression
// repeat last regular expression
?re? search backwards
(.)kX mark line as X (save position)
'X the line marked as X (used anywhere a line number can be used)
.= display current line number
= display number of lines

ed's regular expression syntax corresponds to grep's basic regular expression syntax. See grep

Changing text#

(.)a append text after current line (up to end input)
(.)i insert text before current line (up to end input)
(.,.)c change (replace lines - delete & insert)
(.,.)d delete lines
(.,.)s/re/replacement/ replace text (once per line)
(.,.)s/re/replacement/g replace text (all per line)
(.,.)s/re/replacement/N replace text (N'th occurrence per line - start at 1)
(.,.)s repeat last substitution
. end input

Misc commands#

(.,.+1)j join addressed lines
(.,.)m(.) move lines
(.,.)t(.) copy (transfer) lines

Regular expressions#

. match any character
\. match period
x* match zero or more x's
[xyz] character class - match x, y, or z
[a-z] match a through z
[^xyz] match anything except x, y, or z
^abc match abc at the beginning of a line
abc$ match abc at the end of a line
[:alnum:]
[:alpha:]
[:cntrl:]
[:digit:]
[:lower:]
[:print:]
[:space:]
[:upper:]

Advanced features#

(1,$)g/re/command-list execute command-list for each matching line each command must be on its own separate line lines may be continued by ending them in \
(1,$)G/re/ interactively edit each matching line

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« This particular version was published on 12-May-2013 12:43 by BlakeMcBride.