Quick reference guide Linux

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10. Text editors and browsers

emacs [-nw] [options] [file[s]] GM
The GNU project Emacs editor. See also xemacs for another version. The most useful options are:
-nw do not start up emacs in a separate window
+n go to line n in the file to be edited
-q do not load an .emacs init file
-u user load the user's .emacs init file

For help on the customized keyboard layout press F1, PF1 or Help.
 
ispell [options] [file[s]] GF
Interactive spelling checking. The most common usage (interactively spell check a file) is ispell [-dlanguage] file. German text with umlauts can be spell checked with ispell-ddeutsch -Tlatin1 file. Not well suited but usable for spell checking of single words: echo "word" | ispell -a  
less [options] [file[s]] GFM
Text browser similar to more. The default behavior and function key assignments have been changed (see environment variables $LESS...). This way the files are preprocessed by lesspipe.sh to allow browsing of compressed files, tar files, man pages and many other formats. Some useful options are:
- display help information
-e exit if EOF is hit 2nd time (now default, change with -+e)
-i ignore case in searches
-n suppresses line numbers (useful for very large files)
-S chop long lines
+/pattern start at first occurrence of pattern
+n goto line n (+G to EOF, +n
to a position n? percent into file)
 
more [options] [file[s]] UF
Browse through a text file. Use less for enhanced functionality.  
nedit [options] [file[s]] P
Motif GUI style text editor. Use e.g. nedit -h to get a short usage text.  
od [-bcdfoxv] [-N bytes] [-t type] [file[s]] UF
dump files in octal and other formats (selected by type or single letter option)  
pico[-f] [+n] [-nn] [-t] [-v] [-w] [-z] [file] P
Simple text editor in the style of the pine composer. Commands are displayed at the bottom of the screen, and context sensitive help is provided. Option -w disables word wrap and thus allows editing of long lines.  
vi [options] [file[s]] U
Screen-oriented (visual) display editor. See also the more capable vim below. Some useful options are:
+[n] go to line n (or to the last line) in the file to be edited
+/pattern start at first occurrence of pattern
-r file recover from crashed editing sessions
-R readonly mode
 
vim [options] [file[s]] P
gvim [options] [file[s]]  
vi improved, a programmers text editor. Lots of enhancements above vi like multi level undo, multi windows and buffers, command line editing, filename completion, on-line help, visual selection, etc. Some useful options are:
+[n] go to line n (or to the last line) in the file to be edited
+/pattern start at first occurrence of pattern
-b binary mode to help editing binary files
-g start the GUI version of vim. Equivalent to gvim
-r [file] recover from crashed editing sessions
-u file load an alternate init file
-v readonly mode
 
xedit [options] [file] P
Simple text editor for X. All of the standard X Toolkit command line options (see man X) are accepted.  
xemacs [-nw] [options] [file[s]] GM
The XEmacs editor. See also emacs for the GNU version of emacs. The most useful options are:
-nw do not start up xemacs in a separate window
+n go to line n in the file to be edited
-no-site-file do not load the site-specific init file
-q do not load an init file
-u user load the user's init file

For help on the customized keyboard layout press F1, PF1 or Help.
 

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