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Date:      Sat, 30 Mar 2019 03:51:13 +0100
From:      Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de>
To:        Lowell Gilbert <freebsd-questions-local@be-well.ilk.org>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: eee-dee anyone?
Message-ID:  <20190330035113.65fc995f.freebsd@edvax.de>
In-Reply-To: <44muld9su4.fsf@be-well.ilk.org>
References:  <23e162e23288d9a2e498df5f40488bb8@kathe.in> <44muld9su4.fsf@be-well.ilk.org>

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On Fri, 29 Mar 2019 19:14:11 -0400, Lowell Gilbert wrote:
> Mayuresh Kathe <mayuresh@kathe.in> writes:
> 
> > Are there still people on this list using the "ed" text-editor?
> > If yes, is it just for kicks? Or is there any real advantage over "vi"?
> 
> Probably pretty few people using it any more.
> 
> Remember that it's actually just a different flavor of vi (same
> executable), so getting rid of it would be silly.

I think you're confusing vi and ex here (which are the same
executable), but ed is something different (a different program).
But I think the reason for this confusion is that using ed
feels like using vi's ex mode or the ex standalone program. :-)

	% hardlinks.sh /usr/bin | grep vi
	    825093: ex nex nvi nview vi view

Compare the locations:

	% which ed ee vi ex
	/bin/ed		<- the standard editor
	/usr/bin/ee	<- easy to use visual editor
	/usr/bin/vi	<- the "normal" vi
	/usr/bin/ex	<- the "ex mode" vi

The standard editor, ed, is the only one present in / (which /bin
is part of), whereas the others are located in /usr, which _might_
be a different partition, not accessible in a worst-case scenario
where you only have / read-only and nothing else. Of course, this
is mostly only historically important, because you won't find
"functionally separated partitions" based on UFS very often, and
modern partitioning approaches as well as ZFS typically don't have
that kind of problem.


-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...



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