Re: [Bug-ed] Ed scripts failing in versions after ~1.10

[Antonio Diaz Diaz]

Hello David,

David Given wrote:
> Since about ed 1.11, the ACK fails to build because some of the ed scripts
> won't run any more. Here is an example of one:
>
> #!/bin/sh
> echo "/* this part is generated from $1 at: " `date` "*/"
> ed -s $1<<'EOI'
> 1,/^$/d
> 1,/^$/d

I can't find the problem without a sample of the file processed by this 
script. I suggest you to add a --verbose option to the invocation of ed 
above in order to get a diagnostic beyond the '?' shown by ed by default:

ed -v -s $1 <<'EOI'

After this change I get this result (using a random text file):
$ ./make.em.gen.new tmp.txt ; echo $?
/* this part is generated from tmp.txt at:  Tue May 22 17:35:13 CEST 2018 */
?
script, line 3: No match
1


> Does anyone know what's happening here, and if there's a way to persuade ed
> to quit with an exit status of 0? (I'd rather not discard ed's exit status
> as that would hide processing errors in the scripts.)

You may try adding -l to the invocation of ed:
'-l'
'--loose-exit-status'
     Don't exit with bad status if a command happens to "fail" (for
     example if a substitution command finds nothing to replace). This
     can be useful when 'ed' is invoked as the editor for crontab.