ed(1)

Use string as the prompt string when in command mode. By default, there is no prompt string.

Suppress printing of byte counts by e, E, r, and w commands, and suppress the ! prompt after a ! command. The - option is obsolescent and will be removed in a future release.

Perform an X command first to handle an encrypted file.

The character . refers to the current line.

The character $ refers to the last line of the buffer.

A decimal number n refers to the nth line of the buffer.

A 'x refers to the line marked with the mark name character x, which must be a lower-case letter. Lines are marked with the k command described below.

An RE enclosed by slashes (/RE/ ) refers to the first line found by searching forward from the line following the current line toward the end of the buffer and stopping at the first line containing a string matching the RE. If necessary, the search wraps around to the beginning of the buffer and continues up to and including the current line, so that the entire buffer is searched. (Also see WARNINGS below.)

An RE enclosed by question marks (?RE? ) addresses the first line found by searching backward from the line preceding the current line toward the beginning of the buffer and stopping at the first line containing a string matching the RE. If necessary, the search wraps around to the end of the buffer and continues up to and including the current line. (Also see WARNINGS below.)

An address followed by a plus (+) or minus (-) sign followed by a decimal number specifies that address plus or minus the indicated number of lines. The plus sign can be omitted.

If an address begins with + or -, the addition or subtraction is calculated with respect to the current line. For example, -5 is interpreted as .-5.

If an address ends with + or -, 1 is added to or subtracted from the address, respectively. As a consequence of this and rule 8 above, the address - refers to the line preceding the current line. (To maintain compatibility with earlier versions of the editor, the circumflex (^) and - characters are interpreted identically when encountered in addresses.) Moreover, multiple trailing + and - characters have a cumulative effect, so -- refers to the second line preceding the current line.

For convenience, a comma (,) represents the address pair 1,$, while a semicolon (;) represents the pair .,$. Additionally, (,addr) represents the address pair 1,addr, while (;addr) represents the pair .,addr.

The a (append) command reads text and appends it after the addressed line. Upon completion, the new current line is the last inserted line, or, if no text was added, at the addressed line. Address 0 is legal for this command, causing the appended text to be placed at the beginning of the buffer.

The c (change) command deletes the addressed lines then accepts input text to replace the deleted lines. Upon completion, the new current line is the last line in text or, if no text was provided, at the first line after the deleted line or lines. Address 0 would be interpreted as address 1.

The d (delete) command deletes the addressed lines from the buffer. Upon completion, the new current line is the first line following the deleted text, or the last line in the file if the deleted line or lines were at the end of the buffer.

The e (edit) command deletes the entire contents of the buffer, then reads in the named file. Upon completion, the new current line is the last line in the buffer. If no file name is given, the remembered file name, if any, is used (see the f command). The number of characters read is displayed, and file is remembered for possible use as a default file name in subsequent e, r, or w commands.

If the file name starts with !, the rest of the line is interpreted as a shell command whose standard output is to be read. Such a shell command is not remembered as the current file name.

Also see DIAGNOSTICS below.

The E (forced edit) command is identical to e except that no check is made to ensure that the current buffer has not been altered since the last w command.

If file is specified, the f (file name) command changes the remembered file name to file. Otherwise, it prints the remembered file name.

The g (global) command first marks every line that matches the given RE. Then, for every such line, the given command-list is executed with the current line initially set to that line. A single command or the first of a list of commands appears on the same line as the global command. All lines of a multiple-line list except the last line must end with a backslash (\). a, i, and c commands and associated input are permitted. The . that normally terminates input mode can be omitted if it would be the last line of the command-list. An empty command-list is equivalent to the p command. The g, G, v, and V commands are not permitted in the command-list. (Also see WARNINGS below.)

The interactive G (Global) command first marks every line that matches the given RE. Then, for every such line, the line is printed, then the current line is changed to that line and one command (other than a, c, i, g, G, v, or V) can be input and executed. After executing that command, the next marked line is printed, and so on. A newline character acts as a null command, and an & causes the re-execution of the most recent command executed within the current invocation of G. Note that the commands input as part of the execution of the G command may address and affect any lines in the buffer. The G command can be terminated by an interrupt signal (ASCII DEL or BREAK).

The h (help) command gives a short error message explaining the reason for the most recent ? diagnostic.

The H (Help) command causes ed to enter a mode in which error messages are printed for all subsequent ? diagnostics. It also explains the previous ? if there was one. The H command alternately turns this mode on and off. Initially, it is off.

The i (insert) command inserts the given text before the addressed line. Upon completion, the current line is the last inserted line, or, if there were none, the addressed line. This command differs from the a command only in the placement of the input text. Address 0 is not legal for this command.

Under the UNIX 2003 environment (see standards(5)), the i (insert) command interprets address 0 as address 1.

The j (join) command joins contiguous lines by removing the appropriate newline characters. If exactly one address is given, this command does nothing.

The k (mark) command marks the addressed line with the name x, which must be a lower-case letter. The address 'x then addresses this line. Upon completion, the new current line remains unchanged from before.

The l (list) command writes the addressed lines to standard output in a visually unambiguous form. Characters listed in the following table are written as the corresponding escape sequence. Nonprintable characters not in the table are written as a three-digit octal number (with a preceding backslash character) for each byte in the character (most significant byte first).

Long lines are folded with the point of folding indicated by writing a backslash character followed by a newline. The end of each line is marked with a $. An l (ell) command can be appended to any command other than e, E, f, q, Q, r, w, or !. The current line number is set to the address of the last line written.

The m (move) command repositions the addressed lines after the line addressed by a. Address 0 is legal for a, causing the addressed lines to be moved to the beginning of the file. It is an error if address a falls within the range of moved lines; Upon completion, the new current line is the last line moved.

The n (number) command prints the addressed lines, preceding each line by its line number and a tab character. Upon completion, the new current line is the last line printed. The n command can be appended to any command other than e, f, r, or w.

The p (print) command prints the addressed lines. Upon completion, the new current line is the last line printed. The p command may be appended to any other command other than e, E, f, q, Q, r, w, or !. For example, dp deletes the current line and prints the new current line.

The P (prompt) command causes ed to prompt with an asterisk (*) (or with string if the -p option was specified in the command line) for all subsequent commands. The P command alternately turns this mode on and off. It is initially on if the -p option was specified; otherwise, off. The current line number is unchanged.

The q (quit) command causes ed to exit. No automatic write of a file is done (but see DIAGNOSTICS below).

The editor exits unconditionally without checking for changes in the buffer since the last w command.

The r (read) command reads the specified file into the buffer after the addressed line. If no file name is given, the remembered file name, if any, is used (see the e and f commands). The remembered file name is not changed unless file is the very first file name mentioned since ed was invoked. Address 0 is legal for r and places the contents of file at the beginning of the buffer. If the read is successful, the number of characters read is displayed. Upon completion, the new current line is the last line read into the buffer. If the file name starts with !, the rest of the line is interpreted as a shell command whose standard output is to be read. For example, $r !ls appends a listing of files in the current directory to the end of the file being edited. A shell command is not remembered as the current file name.

The s (substitute) command searches each addressed line for an occurrence of the specified RE. In each line in which a match is found, all (nonoverlapped) matched strings are replaced by replacement if the global replacement indicator g appears after the command. If the global indicator does not appear, only the first occurrence of the matched string is replaced. If a number n appears after the command, only the nth occurrence of the matched string on each addressed line is replaced. It is an error for the substitution to fail on all addressed lines. Any character other than space or newline can be used instead of / to delimit the RE and replacement. Upon completion, the new current line is the last line on which a substitution occurred. (Also see WARNINGS below.)

If an ampersand (&) appears in replacement, it is replaced by the string matching the RE on the current line. The special meaning of & in this context can be suppressed by preceding it with \.

As a more general feature, the characters \n, where n is a digit, are replaced by the text matched by the nth regular subexpression of the specified RE enclosed between \( and \). When nested parenthesized subexpressions are present, n is determined by counting occurrences of \(, starting from the left.

When the character % is the only character in replacement, the replacement used in the most recent substitute command is used as the replacement in the current substitute command. The % loses its special meaning when it is in a replacement string containing more than one character or when preceded by a \.

A line can be split by substituting a newline character into it. The newline in replacement must be escaped by preceding it by \. Such substitution cannot be done as part of a g or v command list.

The value of flags is zero or more of:

Same as m command, except that a copy of the addressed lines is placed after address a (which can be 0). Upon completion, the new current line is the last line of the copy.

The u (undo) command nullifies the effect of the most recent command that modified anything in the buffer, that is, the most recent a, c, d, g, G, i, j, m, r, s, t, v, or V command. All changes made to the buffer by a g, G, v, or V global command are "undone" as a single change; if no changes were made by the global command (such as with g/RE/p ), the u command has no effect. The current line number is set to the value it had immediately before the command started.

The complement of the global command g in that the lines marked during the first step are those that do not match the RE.

The complement of the interactive global command G in that the lines marked during the first step are those that do not match the RE.

The w (write) command writes the addressed lines into the named file. If the file does not exist, it is created with mode 666 (readable and writable by everyone), unless the current umask setting dictates otherwise (see umask(1). The remembered file name is not changed unless file is the very first file name encountered since ed was invoked. If no file name is given, the remembered file name, if any, is used (see the e and f commands). Upon completion, the current line address is unchanged. If the command is successful, the number of characters written is displayed.

If the file name starts with !, the rest of the line is interpreted as a shell command whose standard input is the addressed lines. Such a shell command is not remembered as the current file name.

A key string is demanded from the standard input. Subsequent e, r, and w commands will encrypt and decrypt the text with this key, using the algorithm of crypt(1). An explicitly empty key turns off encryption.

The line number of the addressed line is displayed. The current line address is unchanged by this command.

The remainder of the line after the ! is sent to the shell to be interpreted and executed as a command. Within the text of that command, the unescaped character % is replaced with the remembered file name. If a ! appears as the first character of the shell command, it is replaced with the text of the previous shell command. Thus, !! repeats the last shell command. If any expansion is performed, the expanded line is echoed. Upon completion, the current line address is unchanged.

An address alone on a line causes the addressed line to be printed. A newline alone is equivalent to .+1p. This technique is useful for stepping forward through the buffer.