Error when running ed with all extensions enabled

[Allfifthstuning]

Dear Andrew,

I've compiled ed with ./configure --enable-all-extensions && make.

Envoking ed gives the following error:

ED: invalid option -- 'c'
Usage: ed [-] [-EGhiRrsVvwx] [-e COMMAND] [-f SCRIPT] [-p PROMPT] [FILE...]

Compiling and running ed with only ./configure works fine.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong?

Kind regards,

Hans

[slewsys]

Hi,
I'm able to reproduce this by setting an environment variable:

export ED=-c 

I'm curious, is that environment variable set for another program/application? If not, then

unset ED

should resolve the issue. But if you need ED environment variable set for another purpose, then ed can be configured to ignore it:

./configure --enable-all-extensions --disable-ed-envar

[Allfifthstuning]

Hi,

Thank you for your prompt reply.
I'm using the ED variable, which contains: rlwrap -c -D 2 -s 1000 -H /home/username/.ed_history ed
unsetting it solves it.

Thank you for your efforts to develop this extended version of ed, I'll be happy to experiment with it.

Kind regards,

Hans

[slewsys]

rlwrap is awesome. I wish ed could be linked against libreadline, but that would break historical behavior, which I've been careful to preserve. If you haven't already done so, under bash, at least, you can use an alias instead, e.g.:

cat ~/.bash_aliases

...
alias ed="rlwrap -c -D 2 -s 1000 -H /home/$USER/.ed_history ed"
...

I don't mention rlwrap in the documentation, but since you've brought it to my attention, I'll do that now. Hans, thank you for your observations and interest!

[Allfifthstuning]

Not being able to edit a line before pressing enter was a showstopper for me at first.
But with rlwrap(1) ed has become my daily driver.
I indeed have 'ed' and 'e' as an alias for the above line.

Btw. you probably know qed[1]. Some of the features you implemented reminded me of it.
One thing I really like about qed is being able to pass an argument after a,i and c, thus:
3c My new text
results in line 3 being replaced with 'My new text'. It saves a couple of enters and a . .

Kind regards,

Hans

[1] https://github.com/phonologus/qed-new

[slewsys]

I really like about qed is being able to pass an argument after a,i and c

Since you asked, you can try commit dd7afbc:

git pull
git switch input-args
make
src/ed -p '* '
* a testing\
123\
testing
* ,p

testing
123
testing

The only caveat I'm aware of is that, in a global command, multi-line input must be terminated with `.' in order to extend the command list. For example:

src/ed -p '* '
* a
hello
world
.
* g/l/a line one\
line two\
.\
s;two;2;
* ,p

hello
line one
line 2
world
line one
line 2

If you want to play with it, I'd be interested in your thoughts/bug reports. After it has been vetted for a while, I'll add some tests and merge into main. In the meantime, thank you for the suggestion!

Regarding QED, I haven't studied the documentation closely yet (which I intend to do), but I've already gotten some ideas from it - e.g., add a command to display the contents of a register. Again, thank you for your interest :)

[Allfifthstuning]

Great. I've build it and will test it this week.

Do you want to discuss it here or can we use the ed mailinglist.
Do you have a name for your extended ed version to differentiate it from gnu ed?

slewys + ed = sled (lets you slide through your textfiles)
Extended ed = xed (that's what she xed)
Super heavily reinforced ed = shred (which makes your workflow rock)

I'm sorry, I got carried away. For now: ed it is.

[slewsys]

To be honest, I don’t check the GNU mailing list often, but you are welcome to post there. I prefer to keep the name ed. You can refer to it as ed 2.x or modern GNU ed.

[Allfifthstuning]

As promised I've did some test runs with your a,i and c extension and as far as I can tell it works fine!

For my use cases only being able to add a single line will suffice.

Inspired by your input-args extension, I've created a small patch for gnu ed, which introduces A,I,C-commands: the single line counterparts of a,i,c.
Which was easier to implement for the layman I am.

[slewsys]

Per commit d63ffef, error handling has been added, and the extension should now work correctly in macros. Tests are still needed, but it should be pretty close.

Regarding patches for GNU ed, I'd encourage you to post to the bug-ed@gnu.org mailing list. You might mention that GNU sed has long supported this, e.g.:

echo hello, | sed 'a world!'

hello,
world!

[slewsys]

Per commit e6eed92, an empty line in an input-arg context of a global command in a macro indicates end-of-input.

Here's an example that would produce a segfault:

ed - -p '* '
* a
hello
world
g/e/a l1 below e\

.
* -,.m>1
* @1

Supporting input args requires a little bit of hackery, so I'm not surprised by this convoluted edge case. I'll continue testing, but I think the extension should be stable now!

[slewsys]

Input args has been merged into the main branch. Thank you again for the suggestion :)