ED(1)

📦
version 1.22.6 · 18 versions
, in arch rolling, nixpkgs unstable

💖 ED(1) 💖 like, the original Unix line editor, bestie 🎀

okay so real talk — ed is genuinely that girl, she's been here since forever, and your girl is about to explain her to you properly ✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

ed — the line-oriented text editor. that's it, that's the vibe 💅

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

ed [options] [[+line] file]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

GNU ed is a line-oriented text editor, no cap. You use it to create, display, modify and otherwise manipulate text files — both interactively and inside shell scripts. versatile queen 👑

There's also a restricted version called red, and she's on a short leash: she can only edit files in the current directory and she absolutely cannot execute shell commands. boundaries, she has them 🙈

Ed is the 'standard' text editor in the sense that she's the original editor for Unix, which means she's widely available basically everywhere — like, you will never show up to a party and find out she wasn't invited 🫶. For most purposes, though, she's been superseded by full-screen editors. not her fault, she's an icon either way 💀

The file name may be preceded by +line, +/RE, or +?RE to set the current line to the line number specified, or to the first or last line matching the regular expression RE ⭐

Start edit by reading in file if given. And if file begins with a !, it reads the output of a shell command instead. plot twist 😭

The environment variable LINES can be used to set the initial window size.

🔥 OPTIONS 🔥

  • -h, --help — display this help and exit. cute, quick, done 💖
  • -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. she's being chill about it 💅
  • -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 the ! prompt.
  • -v, --verbose — be verbose; equivalent to the H command.
  • --strip-trailing-cr — strip carriage returns at end of text lines.
  • --unsafe-names — allow control characters in file names.

👑 EXIT STATUS 👑

okay so she exits with:

  • 0 for a normal exit 💚
  • 1 for environmental problems (invalid command-line options, memory exhausted, command failed, etc)
  • 2 for problems with the input file (file not found, buffer modified, I/O errors)
  • 3 for an internal consistency error (e.g., bug) which caused ed to panic 😭

🐛 REPORTING BUGS 🐛

Found a bug? Tell the girlies:

Copyright © 1994 Andrew L. Moore.

Copyright © 2026 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. (say it with me: no warranty, no cap 🫶)

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

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. go read it, iykyk 📚

and that's the whole page bestie 💜 — brought to you by GNU ed 1.22.6, dated August 2026. slay, periodt, mwah 💋

📦 where this page comes from