Re: ed using Bash/Emacs commands for movement

[Jackson Benete]

Shawn:
>
> 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.
>

Thank you Shawn!
I'm not sure if I understood.
I have some linux distros installed but I'm currently doing it using wsl2.

When I enter wsl using the `command prompt`, I already get the  key chord
support. I can move around with C-a, C-e, C-p...
If I start the busybox ed which is in `/bin/ed` I have some of those
available, like C-a, C-e, C-f, M-f, etc... I don't have C-p and C-n since
there is no history, right? But all the others just work..
If I start GNU ed which is in `/usr/local/bin/ed` I don't have the same
support.

What puzzles me is that although command prompt is not a good terminal, it
does have support both in shell and in busybox's ed out of box, that's why
I didn't considered it a potential terminal setting issue at first.

Maybe the busybox ed is a symlink to a script that calls `rlwrap ed -v -p:`
since there is the key chord support out of the box, there is the verbosity
and a `:` prompt. Still puzzles me that some GNU ed commands don't work in
BusyBox's ed, like a `n` or `,n`, give me an "unimplemented command" error
instead of printing the range/current address with line numbers.


David:

> If you run ed under the third-party program rlwrap you'll get the line
> editing features you're looking for.
>

Thank you David!
I didn't had rlwrap installed and I was not familiar with it.
Now it works, although I'm still puzzled why BusyBox's ed already have the
support.


Anyway, is this key chord support (unsupported in this case) something
desired? I mean, is it unsupported by design?
Bringing this kind of support could introduce compatibility problems with
older OS versions, terminal or something?

Although I'll be satisfied using the rlwrap tool for this, I would be very
interested in knowing more about those kinds of details. :)

Jackson Benete