THE(1)

📦 version 3.3~rc1, in debian bookworm, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble

👑 THE(1) — the manual page, but make it a vibe

okay bestie, sit down, hydrate, because we're talking about the — The Hessling Editor — and she is literally iconic. this is the THE(1) page from the THE manual, and I'm giving you the whole thing, no skips, no cuts, fr fr. 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

the — The Hessling Editor. that's it, that's the name, she's the editor. 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

the [-h?nmrsbk] [-p profile] [-a profile_arg] [-l line_num] [-c col_num]
[-w width] [-u display_length] [-k[fmt]] [[dir] [file [...]]]

yes the flags are all crammed together like that. she contains multitudes. 🦋

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

THE is a text editor that operates using both command line commands and key bindings. it's intended to be similar to the VM/CMS System Product Editor, XEDIT, and to KEDIT from Mansfield Software. like, she knows her lineage. 👑

THE was originally written to be used by people who were already familiar with the editors listed above. for this reason, the documentation provides limited information on using THE, and concentrates more on reference material — things like command syntax and configuration. so she's not gonna hold your hand, but she will hold your macro syntax. 😌

🫶 OPTIONS 🫶

  • -h, -? — prints a usage message on standard error and exits successfully. asking for help is main character energy, periodt.
  • -n — runs THE without any profile. normally THE tries to find a profile file and execute it on startup; this switch suppresses that search and execute and runs THE in its default mode. super useful for figuring out whether a bug in THE only happens with certain user-specific customizations. lowkey a debugging slay. 🔍
  • -m — on ports of THE that support colour, this switch forces THE into monochrome mode. more a testing feature than a user feature, ngl.
  • -r — enables THE to be run in read-only mode. in this mode, commands that alter the contents of a file are invalid. she's just looking, not touching. 🙈
  • -s — on Unix platforms, this switch enables the writing of a core file if THE crashes. normally, THE traps any internal errors and exits gracefully. this switch is a testing feature rather than a user feature. 💀
  • -b — when you want to use THE as a non-interactive tool for manipulating the contents of one or more files, this switch disables any display of file contents and disables keyboard interaction. normally used in conjunction with a specific profile — see the -p option.
  • -q — run quietly in batch mode. this suppresses the introductory informative message displayed when errors are encountered running in batch. shhh. 🤫
  • -k[fmt] — allows soft label keys. this allows the display of one (or two) lines at the bottom of the screen with 'buttons' intended to be used to represent function keys. these 'soft label keys' can be manipulated with the <SET SLK> command. the fmt optional extra argument is a single digit representing the format of the display of the 'buttons':
    • 1 — displays 8 'buttons' in a 4-4 layout
    • 2 — displays 8 'buttons' in a 3-2-3 layout
    • 3 — displays 12 'buttons' in a 4-4-4 layout
    • 4 — displays 12 'buttons' in a 4-4-4 layout with an index line
    • 5 — displays 10 'buttons' in a 5-5 layout

not all platforms support all 5 format options. on those ports of THE that are mouse-aware, the mouse can be pressed on a 'button', and the command assigned to the corresponding function key is executed. 🖱️

  • -l line_num — specifies the line number to make current when THE starts.
  • -c column_num — specifies the column number to make current when THE starts.
  • -p profile — specifies the THE profile to run instead of the default profile.
  • -a profile_arg — specifies the arguments that are passed to the profile specified with the -p switch.
  • -w width — specifies the maximum line width for a line in the current edit session. can be overridden with the <SET WIDTH> command.
  • -u display_length — THE can run as a binary editor. specifying this switch tells THE to read in the file and display it in 'lines' that are display_length long. all end-of-line characters in the file are ignored and are treated as other characters in the file. 🧚
  • -X X11_switches — with the X11 port of THE, standard X11 switches can be specified with this switch to dynamically configure the way THE displays or behaves. you can also specify XCurses-specific switches here as well. for more information on the XCurses switches available, consult the PDCurses documentation.
  • -1 — tells THE to run in 'Single Instance Mode'. the first time THE is run with the -1 switch, it starts as normal. subsequent executions of THE with the -1 command-line switch will not start a new instance of THE — instead it will edit the file(s) specified on the command-line in the currently running instance of THE. this feature is currently only available with the X11 port of the using XCurses 2.5 and greater. if the first instance of THE with the -1 switch crashes for any reason, subsequent attempts to run THE with the -1 switch will hang. to fix this, remove the file (really a FIFO) $HOME/.thefifo and then run THE with the -1 switch again.
⚠️ bestie this one can literally hang on you. if the first -1 instance dies, delete $HOME/.thefifo and try again. you're welcome. 💜
  • [dir [file [...]]] — file(s) and/or directory to be edited. ✨

🎀 FILES 🎀

  • /etc/therc — global profile file for THE.
  • $HOME/.therc — local profile file for THE.
  • /usr/share/THE/THE_Help.txt — THE help file name.

🌈 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES 🌈

THE uses the following environment variables:

  • THE_HOME_DIR — the directory in which THE looks for its help file(s) and macro(s).
  • THE_HELP_FILE — the fully qualified file name containing help information.
  • THE_PROFILE_FILE — the fully qualified file name for the local profile file.
  • THE_MACRO_PATH — a list of all directories in which THE is to look for <macro> files.

💫 SEE ALSO 💫

THE Reference Manual. go read her, she's thorough. 📚

⭐ AUTHOR ⭐

Mark Hessling <mark@rexx.org>.

Copyright 1991-2010 Mark Hessling. All rights reserved. THE is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License and comes with NO WARRANTY. see the file COPYING for details.

on Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public License version 2 can be found in /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-2.

💀 "NO WARRANTY" is not a drill, bestie. she's free as in freedom, not free as in someone will fix your problem for you.

🌐 WWW 🌐

http://hessling-editor.sourceforge.net

🔥 REPORTING BUGS 🔥

report bugs to <thelist@uiuc.edu>. tell them exactly what happened, not just "it broke". be the bestie who files a good report. 💖

🧚 MANUAL AUTHORS 🧚

  • Mark Hessling <mark@rexx.org>
  • Alen Zekulic <alen@nms.hr>

and that's the whole page, no cap. this one's a Debian GNU/Linux joint, dated February 2010, and it lives in section THE(1) — so next time you see THE(1) floating around, you'll know exactly who she is. slay, go edit something. 💅✨🦋

📦 where this page comes from