1BSD/help/edit

			"EDIT" TEXT EDITOR

Edit is the name of a version of the editor ex which  is  designed  for
beginning or casual users.  When the editor is invoked as "edit" rather
than as "ex" the default setting of certain options is changed,  making
the editing environment less complicated and more informative.  Edit is
the recommended editor for people who are learning text editing.

Users who have experience with an editor such as ed  or  nex  may  also
prefer  to  use edit, but they should be aware that the option settings
of edit introduce some differences in the way the editor behaves.   The
option settings which differ in edit are:

nomagic: When the "magic" option is set (as in ex), several  characters
     have  special  meanings  in  regular  expressions  (the  character
     strings specified when searching  the  buffer  or  indicating  the
     characters  to  be  changed by a substitute command).  However, in
     edit the "nomagic" option in effect, and only the characters

                             $       ^       \

     have special meanings.  In this respect, edit  is  different  from
     the editor ed as well as from ex.

noopen: This option prevents the user from accidently entering open and
     visual  modes,  in which the editor behaves quite differently than
     in normal command mode.

notify=1: The editor gives feedback whenever a  command  modifies  more
     than a specified number of lines, set to 1 line in edit.  With ex,
     the user is not notified unless the number of  lines  modified  is
     greater than 5.

Type "help ex" for more information about ex.