mazocomp opined: > Hi! > > I am not good at explaining something shortly and clearly to fit into > proper documentation, so I'll just describe my experience here. > > Terminating regular expressions with / or ? is necessary only if they > are followed by commands, otherwise the following are legal in both > OpenBSD ed, Plan 9 ed and GNU ed: > /something > / > ? > g/ing > > I hope I made life of many ed users easier :)
> On Thu, Jul 04, 2019 at 11:47:50PM +0200, ropers wrote: >> Do I understand correctly that this is in reference to these parts of man >> 1 ed: >> >> > /re/ >> > The next line containing the regular expression re. The search wraps >> > to the beginning of the buffer and continues down to the current line, >> > if necessary. ???//??? repeats the last search. >> >> > ?re? >> > The previous line containing the regular expression re. The search >> > wraps to the end of the buffer and continues up to the current line, if >> > necessary. ???????? repeats the last search. >> >> and: >> >> > (1,$)g/re/command-list >> > Applies command-list to each of the addressed lines matching a >> > regular expression re. The current address is set to the line currently >> > matched before command-list is executed. At the end of the g command, >> > the current address is set to the last line affected by command-list. If >> > no lines were matched, the current line number remains unchanged. >> > >> > Each command in command-list must be on a separate line, and every >> > line except for the last must be terminated by a backslash (???\???). >> > Any commands are allowed, except for g, G, v, and V. A newline alone in >> > command-list is equivalent to a p command. >> >> >> If yes, then the corresponding parts of ed.1 are: >> >> <snip snip sauce> >> >> and: >> >> <snip sauce> >> >> I'm not actually sure how to rewrite that. Would this call for >> separate /re, ?re and (1,$)g/re entries, or would it suffice to say >> that the second question mark or slash can be omitted if immediately >> followed by a newline? >> >> Does anyone else have any ideas? >> >> NB: In case people haven't seen it, here's an excellent ed(1) >> tutorial: https://sanctum.geek.nz/arabesque/actually-using-ed/ >> I just thought I'd mention that. Mohamed proffered: > To add to Ian's reference. "Ed Mastery" is the only book I know > specific to ed(1). > > Mo Jason McIntyre expounded: > > hi. > > if we were going to document it, i'd say it definitely wouldn;t warrant > adding separate entries. it would be enough to describe when the / or ? > were optional. > > neither freebsd nor netbsd seemingly document this. > > posix documents it for /re/ and ?re?, but not g/RE/command-list, like > this: > > In addition, the second <slash> can be omitted at the end of a > command line. > > without having tested any of this, i guess we'd want to add such a note > to /re/ and ?re?, but not g/RE/command-list. something along the lines > of: > > The second slash is optional when followed by a newline. > > you could ping a diff to tech, and see if anyone has any input that > could help. if no one does, i'll take it. Okay, so since nobody else appears to be making any pertinent noise, I guess it falls to me: Index: ed.1 =================================================================== RCS file: /cvs/src/bin/ed/ed.1,v retrieving revision 1.70 diff -u -r1.70 ed.1 --- ed.1 26 Apr 2018 12:18:54 -0000 1.70 +++ ed.1 6 Jul 2019 21:20:15 -0000 @@ -269,6 +269,9 @@ current line, if necessary. .Qq // repeats the last search. +The second slash is optional for a bare search without any suffixed command, i.e.\& +.Qq / Ns Ar re +is sufficient when followed by a newline. .It Pf ? Ar re ? The previous line containing the regular expression .Ar re . @@ -276,6 +279,9 @@ current line, if necessary. .Qq ?? repeats the last search. +The second question mark is optional for a bare search without any suffixed command, i.e.\& +.Ns Qq ? Ns Ar re +is sufficient when followed by a newline. .It \&' Ns Ar lc The line previously marked by a .Ic k Questions? Comments? Complaints? Secondary trade sanctions? And no, don't ask me how much of my weekend I wasted figuring out how to suppress mandoc's insistence upon two spaces after the 'i.e.' just because there's a period at the end of a line. Because *&#%$!!! everything about the &"£$" of @~"£$"£ '£$""! Which I'm saying with love and in the best possible humour of course. Ian PS: Oh, and Mo: At the peril of joking about weak-sauce wedge issues that were astroturficially whipped up and media-amplified for *divide et impera* purposes: The Manly McManface Edition of Ed Mastery lends a whole new meaning to `man ed`.
