Re: Ed with Readline

[Shawn Wagner]

My use case for ed is using it in shell scripts to automate the editing of
files, not for interactive use. Add me to the list of people not thinking
direct readline support is needed.

On Thu, Oct 15, 2020 at 9:58 PM Bob Proulx <bob@proulx.com> wrote:

> Brian Zwahr wrote:
> > For the record, this can be achieved simply by running `ed` with
> `rlwrap`.
> >
> > $ rlwrap ed
> >
> > That's what I do, thanks to one of the @ed1conf tweets. I think other
> people
> > use this method, too. It gives the functionality without having to change
> > ed, following the "do one thing and do it well" philosophy.
>
> I also use rlwrap on any tool that I want lib readline editing.  Works
> with random tools like ftp for example.  It's a good generic tool
> which works with line based programs.  I haven't ever wanted to use it
> with ed though.
>
> It would seem odd for a small program like ed to pull in a library
> containing 10x more lines of code than itself.  And it seems odd to me
> that the target audience of ed would want it.  My target use for ed
> includes that it is an editor that has no dependencies beyond libc.
>
> I think this feature addition is undesirable for ed.  And if someone
> does desire it then it is trivially available using rlwrap as Brian
> has shown.
>
> Bob
>
>