OK, I'm truly a a newbie. I'm in a Linux class at a community college with the worlds worst instructor and a worthless textbook.

The book starts using the following ed construction:
1,$p 'Print all the lines'
but it doesn't give a clue about what the parts of this construction means. I asked the instructor and he gave me an obviously wrong answer about it putting it in a registry. I know he's confused. This guy knows zero linux.

I understand that the p is for print. I take it from the book that the $ means end of a line.

I have no idea what the 1 means or how the syntax of this line works. Since I gather that ed is a line editor I think it should only print one line anyway, but the "explanation" clearly says "print ALL the lines."

Google is no help, since it doesn't recognize symbols such as , and $.

Can anyone help me?

Roger

well, I'm surprised you're using 'ed' that's a precursor to vi (precursor to vim).
anyway, it looks like the vi/vim cmd

:1,$p

You get the ':' when in cmd mode (you can use ed-like constructions); meaning is

1 - start from first line
, - range marker
$ - to last line
p - print line

therefore, print all lines from 1 to $ (ie last line = end of file)

HTH
http://www.vim.org/

Thank you Chris.

Actually we're not using ed, we're using sed to learn about regular expressions, but this "beginners" book starts the chapter by saying "Throughout this section we assume familiarity with a line-based editor such as ex or ed."

Of course, that's the first reference to any such thing, and it stopped me dead in my tracks right there.

Anyway - enough blowing off steam. Thanks for your help.

Roger

1 is line 1, $ is the last line, so 1,$p means "for line = 1 .. last_line; print line"

Note that this is an ed construction, and ed is a very seldom used Linux editor. ed is a great editor if you are using a real tty to edit a file, where your input and output is printed on paper. Most system in use today use CRT display systems, where the screen can be re-displayed to reflect changes, and - on a simple CRT display (one without a Graphical User Interface, a "GUI") an editor like nano or vi is much more common.

About the only current use of ed-like commands is in old programs (like mail and sed) ported from 1980s UNIX systems, and used, almost exclusively, by system administrators.

Of course, almost all current Linux distributions are shiped wit a GUI, and include several full-screen WYSIWUG (What You See Is What You Get) editors. While learning ed might be of interest to a historian, I can't see much point in including it in a Linux class.

(And, just FYI, no Linux system of which I'm aware has anything like a "registry." Most system and application control files in a Linux system are in the /etc directory, and they are simple, easily read, text files.)

I'm pretty sure he meant register, as in the construction
^\(.\).*\1$
where the result is places in a "register"

He just can't talk. Kinda like his constant use of the word "apprehend" to mean append.

apprehend = append a policeman to a criminal


BTW agree with PTrenholme. The main editor to at least know the basics of is vi; its installed by default on just about any/all versions of *nix, inc Linux, *BSD, AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, Mac-OSX (I believe).
The minimal recovery shell ash includes a cut-down version of vi built-in.
Also, very low overhead for low bandwidth cxns.