ed − line-oriented text editor
ed [options] [file]
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 For most purposes, however, it is superseded by full−screen editors such as GNU Emacs or GNU Moe.
−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.
Report bugs to
bug−[email protected]
Ed home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/ed/ed.html
General help using GNU software:
http://www.gnu.org/gethelp
Copyright ©
1994 Andrew L. Moore.
Copyright © 2023 Antonio Diaz Diaz. License GPLv2+: GNU
GPL version 2 or later
<http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and
redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent
permitted by law.
The full documentation for ed is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and ed programs are properly installed at your site, the command
info ed
should give you access to the complete manual.