You can always start up an editor immediately to edit the current file being viewed. This will save some time while typing commands. The editor is taken from the environment variable VISUAL if defined, or EDITOR if VISUAL is not defined, or defaults to “vi” if neither VISUAL nor EDITOR is defined. I suggest you define your EDITOR first, enter:
$ export EDITOR=vim
OR
$ echo 'export EDITOR=vim' >> ~/.bash_profile
export EDITOR=vim
Feel free to replace vim with emacs, joe or any other editor of your choice. Open a text file using more or less pager, type:
$ less myfile.txt
OR
$ more ~/some.conf
To edit a file, hit v key from keyboard. This will start up an editor at current line and file.
Further readings:
- man page less and more
6 comment
when you use less for more to view at that time you want edit first press ‘v’ then ‘i’
Great tip thank you. I heard about this on the Lottalinuxlinks podcast.
Hullo, just love your writing :) Sorry if this is a stupid comment, I didn’t find a “like” button :(
I use TextWrangler which comes with the ‘edit’ command line tool. I have always detested vim and preferred nano’s simplicity. I just tried this hint with nano and then with the TW edit command and both worked great. This is a simple, yet very helpful hint.
Thanks!
Thanks!!
i was looking for the EDITOR env-var tip!
Useful, thanks,
— Philippe