[TUHS] Posix ed weirdness

[Rob Pike via TUHS]

Sam does it without special casing.

-rob


On Wed, Dec 17, 2025 at 2:27 AM Cameron Míċeál Tyre via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org>
wrote:

> Hi Doug,
>
> Thank you. I use ed all the time, on every machine/device I have, but I
> did not know it was possible to join more than two lines at a time and I
> never thought of trying.
>
> I guess the syntax would have been simpler if only two could be joined at
> one time, something like 2j to join line 2 and line 3. The very fact that
> the syntax to join line 2 and line 3 would be
> 2,3j
> cries out, "I can join more than two lines!", but I just never figured it
> out.
>
> Now I know!
>
> Best regards,
>
> Cameron
>
>
>
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> On Monday, 12/15/25 at 21:56 Douglas McIlroy via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org>
> wrote, in part:
>
> The ed j command joins a sequence of lines into one line and sets dot
> to the result. Thus
>      2,4j
> combines three lines and sets dot to 2.
>