Commodore PC Ms-Dos 3.2 User's Manual page 197

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n 6 The Line Editor (Edlin)
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' i In this chapter you will learn:
■ How to start edlin, the line editor program
r**) ■ How to quit edlin
■ How to use the msdos special editing keys with edlin
For information on specific edlin commands, see Chapter 7,
"Edlin Commands."
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AbOUt Edlin What can Edlin do?
You can use the msdos line editor, edlin, to create text files and
save them on your disks, or to update existing files, saving both
the original and the updated files. Or, with edlin you can delete,
edit, insert, and display lines in files. It will also help you search
for, and delete or replace, text within your files. And, though it
isn't a word processor, edlin does make it easy for you to create
and revise files such as memos, letters, reports, or gw-basic
programs.
How Edlin Works
Edlin divides the text from a file into lines, each line containing How does Edlin
up to 253 characters. It gives each line a number and always work?
numbers the lines consecutively. But, even though you see these
line numbers on the screen when you use edlin, they are not part
of the file.
When you insert lines of text in a file, the line numbers after
the inserted text are automatically adjusted. Similarly, when you
delete lines in a file, the line numbers following the deleted text
are automatically renumbered.
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