Info Catalog ed: Introduction to line editing ed: Top ed: Line addressing

ed: Invoking ed

 
 3 Invoking ed
 *************
 
 The format for running 'ed' is:
 
      ed [OPTIONS] [[+LINE] FILE]
      red [OPTIONS] [[+LINE] FILE]
      ed [OPTIONS] [[+LINE] '!COMMAND [ARGUMENTS]']
 
    FILE specifies the name of a file to read. If FILE is prefixed with a
 bang (!), then it is interpreted as a shell command. In this case, what is
 read is the standard output of FILE executed via 'sh'. To read a file whose
 name begins with a bang (or a hyphen), prefix the name with './'. The
 default filename is set to FILE only if it is not prefixed with a bang.
 
    The file name may be preceded by '+LINE' to set the current line to the
 line number specified. If LINE exceeds the number of lines in the file, the
 current line is set to the last line.
 
    The file name may be preceded by '+/RE' to set the current line to the
 first line matching the regular expression RE, or by '+?RE' to set the
 current line to the last line matching RE. If RE does not match any line,
 ed fails immediately with exit status 1 unless the option '-l' is specified
 and standard input is not a regular file.
 
    'ed' supports the following options: ⇒Argument syntax
 (arg_parser)Argument syntax.
 
 '-h'
 '--help'
      Print an informative help message describing the options and exit.
 
 '-V'
 '--version'
      Print the version number of 'ed' on the standard output and exit. This
      version number should be included in all bug reports.
 
 '-E'
 '--extended-regexp'
      Use extended regular expressions instead of the basic regular
      expressions mandated by POSIX.
 
 '-G'
 '--traditional'
      Forces backwards compatibility. This affects the behavior of the 'ed'
      commands 'G', 'V', 'f', 'l', 'm', 't', and '!!'. If the default
      behavior of these commands does not seem familiar, then try invoking
      'ed' with this switch.
 
 '-l'
 '--loose-exit-status'
      Don't exit with bad status if a command happens to "fail" (for example
      if a substitution command finds nothing to replace). This can be useful
      when 'ed' is invoked as the editor for crontab.
 
 '-p STRING'
 '--prompt=STRING'
      Specifies a command prompt string and turns prompting on. Showing the
      prompt string may be toggled on and off with the 'P' command.
 
 '-q'
 '--quiet'
 '--silent'
      Suppress diagnostic messages written to standard error.
 
 '-r'
 '--restricted'
      Run in restricted mode. This mode disables editing of files out of the
      current directory and execution of shell commands.
 
 '-s'
 '--script'
      Suppress the printing of byte counts by 'e', 'E', 'r', and 'w'
      commands, and the '!' prompt after a '!' command. This option does not
      suppress diagnostic messages written to standard error (see '-q'
      above). '-s' may be useful if 'ed''s standard input is from a script.
 
 '-v'
 '--verbose'
      Turn help mode on; print a help message explaining the reason for each
      '?' notification. This may be toggled on and off with the 'H' command.
      Use this option to aid in debugging ed scripts.
 
 '--strip-trailing-cr'
      Strip the carriage returns at the end of text lines in DOS files. CRs
      are removed only from the CR/LF (carriage return/line feed) pair
      ending the line. CRs at other positions in the line, including a CR
      finishing an unterminated line, are not removed. The CRs are not
      restored when saving the buffer to a file.
 
 '--unsafe-names'
      'ed' rejects file names containing control characters 1 to 31 unless
      they are allowed with this option.
 
 
    Exit status: 0 for a normal exit, 1 for environmental problems (invalid
 command-line options, memory exhausted, command failed, etc), 2 for
 problems with the input file (file not found, buffer modified, I/O errors),
 3 for an internal consistency error (e.g., bug) which caused ed to panic.
 

Info Catalog ed: Introduction to line editing ed: Top ed: Line addressing