Edit a File When You Are Viewing It Using more / less Command

2010-03-16 2 min read Linux

<a href="http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/edit-file-when-youre-viewing-withmore-less/">Aritcle here.

<a title="Permanent Link to Edit a File When You Are Viewing It Using more / less Command" rel="bookmark" href="http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/edit-file-when-youre-viewing-withmore-less/">Edit a File When You Are Viewing It Using more / less Command<div style="color: #888888;">Posted by Vivek Gite [Last updated: November 1, 2008]

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<span style="color: #ff0000;">Question: I can use <a href="http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/less-is-more-the-hidden-treasure-of-less-command.html">less or more pagers to view a file. How do I start an editor (such as vi or other text editor) to edit the current file without leaving the less or more pager command?

<span style="color: #009900;">Answer: You can always start up an editor immediately to edit the current file being viewed. This will save some time and command typing. The editor is taken from the environment variable VISUAL if defined, or EDITOR if VISUAL is not defined, or defaults to &#8221;vi&#8221; if neither VISUAL nor EDITOR is defined. I suggest you define your EDITOR first, enter:

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      $ export EDITOR=vim
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OR

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      $ echo \'export EDITOR=vim\' >> ~/.bash_profile
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Now open any file using more or less pager:

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      $ less myfile.txt
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OR

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      $ more ~/some.conf
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Now, to edit a file, hit <span style="color: #0000ff;">v key from keyboard. This will start up an editor at current line and file.

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