Solaris™ 7 Reference

ed, red — Text Editor

Synopsis

/usr/bin/ed [-s|-] [-p string] [-x] [-C] [file] 
/usr/xpg4/bin/ed [-s|-] [-p string] [-x] [-C] [file] 
/usr/bin/red [-s|-] [-p string] [-x] [-C] [file] 

Description

The ed command is the standard text editor. If you specify a file, ed reads the file into ed's buffer so that it can be edited.

Note

Although vi and ex have superseded ed as a line editor, some commands such as diff continue to use ed.

The ed command operates on a copy of the file it is editing; the original file remains unchanged until you issue a w (write) command. The copy of the text being edited resides in a temporary file called the buffer. There is only one buffer.

Unlike the vi and ex commands, ed does not display any of the text in its buffer ...