NAME

ed - line-oriented text editor

SYNOPSIS

ed [options] [file]

DESCRIPTION

GNU ed is a line-oriented text editor. It is used to create, display, modify and otherwise manipulate text files, both interactively and via shell scripts. A restricted version of ed, red, can only edit files in the current directory and cannot execute shell commands. Ed is the 'standard' text editor in the sense that it is the original editor for Unix, and thus widely available. For most purposes, however, it is superseded by full-screen editors such as GNU Emacs or GNU Moe.

OPTIONS

-h, --help: display this help and exit
-V, --version: output version information and exit
-E, --extended-regexp: use extended regular expressions
-G, --traditional: run in compatibility mode
-l, --loose-exit-status: exit with 0 status even if a command fails
-p, --prompt=STRING: use STRING as an interactive prompt
-q, --quiet, --silent: suppress diagnostics written to stderr
-r, --restricted: run in restricted mode
-s, --script: suppress byte counts and '!' prompt
-v, --verbose: be verbose; equivalent to the 'H' command
--strip-trailing-cr: strip carriage returns at end of text lines

Start edit by reading in 'file' if given. If 'file' begins with a '!', read output of shell command.

Exit status: 0 for a normal exit, 1 for environmental problems (file not found, invalid command line options, I/O errors, etc), 2 to indicate a corrupt or invalid input file, 3 for an internal consistency error (e.g., bug) which caused ed to panic.

REPORTING BUGS

Report bugs to bug-ed@gnu.org
Ed home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/ed/ed.html
General help using GNU software: http://www.gnu.org/gethelp

COPYRIGHT