Re: ed using Bash/Emacs commands for movement

[Shawn Wagner]

Yeah, ed is really, really basic. It doesn't have support for  key
chords/arrow keys to move the current line cursor around.  The
implementation of ed embedded in busybox doesn't work that way either when
I tested and I don't see anything in the source on a quick scan that would
support it.

If you're just trying to move the cursor around in a single line you're
typing, that sounds like a terminal setting issue, not anything ed-specific.

On Tue, Jun 8, 2021 at 10:58 AM Jackson Benete <jacksonbenete@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hello there,
> I'm not used to interacting with mailing lists, I hope this will be sent
> correctly.
>
> I was using ed with alpine and trying to follow the GNU ed Manual.
> Things were behaving differently and It took me a while to realize that I
> was using `BusyBox ed` and not really `GNU ed`.
>
> I've compiled GNU ed then, and succeeded using it and following the Manual.
>
> One thing caught my attention though and I'm really missing it right now.
> I've noticed that on the ed version bundled with BusyBox (v1.32.1) it had
> the commands to move around just like I'm used to in Bash and Emacs, which
> is C-a, C-e, M-f, M-b...
> For some reason when I try to move around in my compiled version of GNU ed
> (1.17) I will instead get the escape sequences like `^A` for `C-a` or `^[a`
> for `M-a`.
> Even the arrow keys don't work and print escape sequences. If I need to
> correct something I need to delete everything with backspaces or C-u and
> start over again.
>
> I tried using ed in a pubnix machine over ssh and it also didn't work (it
> was v1.16).
>
> There is some flag that I can activate during compilation to enable this,
> or maybe any command or flag during ed execution that can be activated?
> Or did BusyBox hacked ed code for those commands to work and they maintain
> their own modified ed project?
>
> Thanks for your attention and for maintaining ed.
>
> Jackson Benete
>