mcedit(1)
NAME
mcedit - Internal file editor of GNU Midnight Commander.
USAGE
mcedit [-bcCdfhstVx?] [+lineno] [file1] [file2] ... mcedit [-bcCdfhstVx?] file1:lineno[:] file2:lineno[:] ...
DESCRIPTION
mcedit is a link to mc, the main GNU Midnight Commander executable. Executing GNU Midnight Commander under this name runs the internal editor and opens files specified on the command line. The editor is based on the terminal version of cooledit - standalone editor for X Window System.
OPTIONS
+lineno
Go to the line specified by number (do not put a space between
the + sign and the number). Several line numbers are allowed but
only the last one will be used, and it will be applied to the
first file only.
-b Force black and white display.
-c Force ANSI color mode on terminals that don't seem to have color
support.
-C <keyword>=<fgcolor>,<bgcolor>,<attributes>:<keyword>= ...
Specify a different color set. See the Colors section in mc(1)
for more information.
-d Disable mouse support.
-f Display the compiled-in search path for GNU Midnight Commander
data files.
-t Force using termcap database instead of terminfo. This option
is only applicable if GNU Midnight Commander was compiled with
S-Lang library with terminfo support.
-V Display the version of the program.
-x Force xterm mode. Used when running on xterm-capable terminals
(two screen modes, and able to send mouse escape sequences).
FEATURES
The internal file editor is a full-featured windowed editor. It can edit several files at the same time. Maximum size of each file is 64 megabytes. It is possible to edit binary files. The features it presently supports are: block copy, move, delete, cut, paste; key for key undo; pull-down menus; file insertion; macro commands; regular expression search and replace; shift-arrow text highlighting (if supported by the terminal); insert-overwrite toggle; autoindent; tunable tab size; syntax highlighting for various file types; and an option to pipe text blocks through shell commands like indent and ispell. Each file is opened in its own window in full-screen mode. Window control in mcedit is similar to the window control in other multi-window program: double click on window title maximizes the window to full-screen or restores window size and position; left-click on window title and mouse drag moves the window in editor area; left-click on low-right frame corner and mouse drag resizes the window. These actions can be made using "Window" menu.
KEYS
The editor is easy to use and can be used without learning. The pull-down menu is invoked by pressing F9. You can learn other keys from the menu and from the button bar labels. In addition to that, Shift combined with arrows does text highlighting (if supported by the terminal): Ctrl-Ins copies to the file ~/.cache/mc/mcedit/mcedit.clip, Shift-Ins pastes from ~/.cache/mc/mcedit/mcedit.clip, Shift-Del cuts to ~/.cache/mc/mcedit/mcedit.clip, and Ctrl-Del deletes highlighted text. Mouse highlighting also works on some terminals. To use the standard mouse support provided by your terminal, hold the Shift key. Please note that the mouse support in the terminal doesn't share the clipboard with mcedit. The completion key (usually Meta-Tab or Escape Tab) completes the word under the cursor using the words used in the file.
MACRO
To define a macro, press Ctrl-R and then type out the keys you want to
be executed. Press Ctrl-R again when finished. The macro can be
assigned to any key by pressing that key. The macro is executed when
you press the assigned key.
The macro commands are stored in section [editor] it the file
~/.local/share/mc/mc.macros.
External scripts (filters) can be assigned into the any hotkey by edit
mc.macros like following:
[editor]
ctrl-W=ExecuteScript:25;
This means that ctrl-W hotkey initiates the ExecuteScript(25) action,
then editor handler translates this into execution of
~/.local/share/mc/mcedit/macros.d/macro.25.sh shell script.
External scripts are stored in ~/.local/share/mc/mcedit/macros.d/
directory and must be named as macro.XXXX.sh where XXXX is the number
from 0 to 9999. See Edit Menu File for more detail about format of the
script.
Following macro definition and directives can be used:
#silent
If this directive is set, then script starts without interactive
subshell.
%c The cursor column position number.
%i The indent of blank space, equal the cursor column.
%y The syntax type of current file.
%b The block file name.
%f The current file name.
%n Only the current file name without extension.
%x The extension of current file name.
%d The current directory name.
%F The current file in the unselected panel.
%D The directory name of the unselected panel.
%t The currently tagged files.
%T The tagged files in the unselected panel.
%u and %U
Similar to the %t and %T macros, but in addition the files are
untagged. You can use this macro only once per menu file entry
or extension file entry, because next time there will be no
tagged files.
%s and %S
The selected files: The tagged files if there are any. Otherwise
the current file.
Feel free to edit this files, if you need. Here is a sample external
script:
l comment selection
TMPFILE=`mktemp ${MC_TMPDIR:-/tmp}/up.XXXXXX` || exit 1
echo #if 0 > $TMPFILE
cat %b >> $TMPFILE
echo #endif >> $TMPFILE
cat $TMPFILE > %b
rm -f $TMPFILE
If some keys don't work, you can use Learn Keys in the Options menu.
CODE NAVIGATION
mcedit can be used for navigation through code with tags files created by etags or ctags commands. If there is no TAGS file code navigation will not work. For example, in case of exuberant-ctags for C language command will be: ctags -e --language-force=C -R ./ Meta-Enter shows list box to select item under cursor (cursor should stand at the end of the word). Meta-Minus where minus is symbol "-" goes to previous function in navigation list (like browser's Back button). Meta-Equal where equal is symbol "=" goes to next function in navigation list (like browser's Forward button).
SYNTAX HIGHLIGHTING
mcedit supports syntax highlighting. This means that keywords and
contexts (like C comments, string constants, etc) are highlighted in
different colors. The following section explains the format of the
file ~/.config/mc/mcedit/Syntax. If this file is missing, system-wide
/usr/share/mc/syntax/Syntax is used. The file
~/.config/mc/mcedit/Syntax is rescanned on opening of every new editor
file. The file contains rules for highlighting, each of which is given
on a separate line, and define which keywords will be highlighted with
what color.
The file is divided into sections, each beginning with a line with the
file command. The sections are normally put into separate files using
the include command.
The file command has three arguments. The first argument is a regular
expression that is applied to the file name to determine if the
following section applies to the file. The second argument is the
description of the file type. It is used in cooledit; future versions
of mcedit may use it as well. The third optional argument is a regular
expression to match the first line of text of the file. The rules in
the following section apply if either the file name or the first line
of text matches.
A section ends with the start of another section. Each section is
divided into contexts, and each context contains rules. A context is a
scope within the text that a particular set of rules belongs to. For
instance, the text within a C style comment (i.e. between /* and */)
has its own color. This is a context, although it has no further rules
inside it because there is probably nothing that we want highlighted
within a C comment.
A trivial C programming section might look like this:
file .\*\\.c C\sProgram\sFile (#include|/\\\*)
wholechars abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ_
# default colors
define comment brown
context default
keyword whole if yellow
keyword whole else yellow
keyword whole for yellow
keyword whole while yellow
keyword whole do yellow
keyword whole switch yellow
keyword whole case yellow
keyword whole static yellow
keyword whole extern yellow
keyword { brightcyan
keyword } brightcyan
keyword '*' green
# C comments
context /\* \*/ comment
# C preprocessor directives
context linestart # \n red
keyword \\\n brightred
# C string constants
context " " green
keyword %d brightgreen
keyword %s brightgreen
keyword %c brightgreen
keyword \\" brightgreen
Each context starts with a line of the form:
context [exclusive] [whole|wholeright|wholeleft] [linestart] delim
[linestart] delim [foreground] [background] [attributes]
The first context is an exception. It must start with the command
context default [foreground] [background] [attributes]
otherwise mcedit will report an error. The linestart option specifies
that delim must start at the beginning of a line. The whole option
tells that delim must be a whole word. To specify that a word must
begin on the word boundary only on the left side, you can use the
wholeleft option, and similarly a word that must end on the word
boundary is specified by wholeright.
The set of characters that constitute a whole word can be changed at
any point in the file with the wholechars command. The left and right
set of characters can be set separately with
wholechars [left|right] characters
The exclusive option causes the text between the delimiters to be
highlighted, but not the delimiters themselves.
Each rule is a line of the form:
keyword [whole|wholeright|wholeleft] [linestart] string foreground
[background] [attributes]
Context or keyword strings are interpreted, so that you can include
tabs and spaces with the sequences \t and \s. Newlines and backslashes
are specified with \n and \\ respectively. Since whitespace is used as
a separator, it may not be used as is. Also, \* must be used to
specify an asterisk. The * itself is a wildcard that matches any
length of characters. For example,
keyword '*' green
colors all C single character constants green. You also could use
keyword "*" green
to color string constants, but the matched string would not be allowed
to span across multiple newlines. The wildcard may be used within
context delimiters as well, but you cannot have a wildcard as the last
or first character.
Important to note is the line
keyword \\\n brightgreen
This line defines a keyword containing the backslash and newline
characters. Since the keywords are matched before the context
delimiters, this keyword prevents the context from ending at the end of
the lines that end in a backslash, thus allowing C preprocessor
directive to continue across multiple lines.
The possible colors are: black, gray, red, brightred, green,
brightgreen, brown, yellow, blue, brightblue, magenta, brightmagenta,
cyan, brightcyan, lightgray and white. The special keyword "default"
means the terminal's default. Another special keyword "base" means mc's
main colors, it is useful as a placeholder if you want to specify
attributes without modifying the background color. When 256 colors are
available, they can be specified either as color16 to color255, or as
rgb000 to rgb555 and gray0 to gray23.
If the syntax file is shared with cooledit, it is possible to specify
different colors for mcedit and cooledit by separating them with a
slash, e.g.
keyword #include red/Orange
mcedit uses the color before the slash. See cooledit(1) for supported
cooledit colors.
Attributes can be any of bold, italic, underline, reverse and blink,
appended by a plus sign if more than one are desired.
Comments may be put on a separate line starting with the hash sign (#).
If you are describing case insensitive language you need to use
caseinsensitive directive. It should be specified at the beginning of
syntax file.
Because of the simplicity of the implementation, there are a few
intricacies that will not be dealt with correctly but these are a minor
irritation. On the whole, a broad spectrum of quite complicated
situations are handled with these simple rules. It is a good idea to
take a look at the syntax file to see some of the nifty tricks you can
do with a little imagination. If you cannot get by with the rules I
have coded, and you think you have a rule that would be useful, please
email me with your request. However, do not ask for regular expression
support, because this is flatly impossible.
A useful hint is to work with as much as possible with the things you
can do rather than try to do things that this implementation cannot
deal with. Also remember that the aim of syntax highlighting is to
make programming less prone to error, not to make code look pretty.
The syntax highlighting can be toggled using Ctrl-s shortcut.
COLORS
The default colors may be changed by appending to the MC_COLOR_TABLE environment variable. Foreground and background colors pairs may be specified for example with: MC_COLOR_TABLE="$MC_COLOR_TABLE:\ editnormal=lightgray,black:\ editbold=yellow,black:\ editmarked=black,cyan"
OPTIONS
Most options can be set from Options dialog box. See the Options menu.
The following options are defined in ~/.config/mc/ini and have obvious
counterparts in the dialog box. You can modify them to change the
editor behavior, by editing the file. Unless specified, a 1 sets the
option to on, and a 0 sets it to off, as usual.
use_internal_edit
This option is ignored when invoking mcedit.
editor_tab_spacing
Interpret the tab character as being of this length. Default is
8. You should avoid using other than 8 since most other editors
and text viewers assume a tab spacing of 8. Use
editor_fake_half_tabs to simulate a smaller tab spacing.
editor_fill_tabs_with_spaces
Never insert a tab character. Rather insert spaces (ascii 32) to
fill to the desired tab size.
editor_return_does_auto_indent
Pressing return will tab across to match the indentation of the
first line above that has text on it.
editor_backspace_through_tabs
Make a single backspace delete all the space to the left margin
if there is no text between the cursor and the left margin.
editor_fake_half_tabs
This will emulate a half tab for those who want to program with
a tab spacing of 4, but do not want the tab size changed from 8
(so that the code will be formatted the same when displayed by
other programs). When editing between text and the left margin,
moving and tabbing will be as though a tab space were 4, while
actually using spaces and normal tabs for an optimal fill. When
editing anywhere else, a normal tab is inserted.
editor_option_save_mode
Possible values 0, 1 and 2. The save mode (see the options menu
also) allows you to change the method of saving a file. Quick
save (0) saves the file immediately, truncating the disk file to
zero length (i.e. erasing it) and then writing the editor
contents to the file. This method is fast, but dangerous, since
a system error during a file save will leave the file only
partially written, possibly rendering the data irretrievable.
When saving, the safe save (1) option enables creation of a
temporary file into which the file contents are first written.
In the event of a problem, the original file is untouched. When
the temporary file is successfully written, it is renamed to the
name of the original file, thus replacing it. The safest method
is create backups (2): a backup file is created before any
changes are made. You can specify your own backup file
extension in the dialog. Note that saving twice will replace
your backup as well as your original file.
editor_word_wrap_line_length
Line length to wrap at. Default is 72.
editor_backup_extension
Symbol to add to name of backup files. Default is "~".
editor_line_state
Show state line of editor. Currently it shows current line
number (in the future it might show things like folding,
breakpoints, etc.). M-n toggles this option.
editor_visible_spaces
Toggle "show visible trailing spaces". If
editor_visible_spaces=1, they are shown as '.'
editor_visible_tabs
Toggle "show visible tabs". If editor_visible_tabs=1, tabs are
shown as '<---->'
editor_persistent_selections
Do not remove block selection after cursor movement.
editor_drop_selection_on_copy
Reset selection after copy to clipboard.
editor_cursor_beyond_eol
Allow moving cursor beyond the end of line.
editor_cursor_after_inserted_block
Allow moving cursor after inserted block.
editor_syntax_highlighting
enable syntax highlighting.
editor_edit_confirm_save
Show confirmation dialog on save.
editor_option_typewriter_wrap
to be described
editor_option_auto_para_formatting
to be described
editor_option_save_position
Save file position on exit.
source_codepage
Symbol representation of codepage name for file (i.e. CP1251, ~
- default).
editor_group_undo
Combine UNDO actions for several of the same type of action
(inserting/overwriting, deleting, navigating, typing)
editor_wordcompletion_collect_entire_file
Search autocomplete candidates in entire file (1) or just from
beginning of file to cursor position (0).
spell_language
Spelling language (en, en-variant_0, ru, etc) installed with
aspell package (a full list can be obtained using 'aspell'
utility). Use spell_language = NONE to disable aspell support.
Default value is 'en'. Option must be located in the [Misc]
section.
editor_stop_format_chars
Set of characters to stop paragraph formatting. If one of those
characters is found in the beginning of line, that line and all
following lines of paragraph will be untouched. Default value is
"-+*\,.;:&>".
editor_state_full_filename
Show full path name in the status line. If disabled, only base
name of the file is shown.
MISCELLANEOUS
You can use scanf search and replace to search and replace a C format string. First take a look at the sscanf and sprintf man pages to see what a format string is and how it works. Here's an example: suppose that you want to replace all occurrences of an open bracket, three comma separated numbers, and a close bracket, with the word apples, the third number, the word oranges and then the second number. You would fill in the Replace dialog box as follows: Enter search string (%d,%d,%d) Enter replace string apples %d oranges %d Enter replacement argument order 3,2 The last line specifies that the third and then the second number are to be used in place of the first and second. It is advisable to use this feature with Prompt On Replace on, because a match is thought to be found whenever the number of arguments found matches the number given, which is not always a real match. Scanf also treats whitespace as being elastic. Note that the scanf format %[ is very useful for scanning strings, and whitespace. The editor also displays non-us characters (160+). When editing binary files, you should set display bits to 7 bits in Midnight Commander's options menu to keep the spacing clean.
FILES
/usr/share/mc/mc.hlp
The help file for the program.
/usr/share/mc/mc.ini
The default system-wide setup for GNU Midnight Commander, used
only if the user's own ~/.config/mc/ini file is missing.
/usr/share/mc/mc.lib
Global settings for Midnight Commander. Settings in this file
affect all users, whether they have ~/.config/mc/ini or not.
/usr/share/mc/syntax/*
The default system-wide syntax files for mcedit, used only if
the corresponding user's own ~/.local/share/mc/mcedit/ file is
missing.
~/.config/mc/ini
User's own setup. If this file is present then the setup is
loaded from here instead of the system-wide setup file.
~/.local/share/mc/mcedit/
User's own directory where block commands are processed and
saved and user's own syntax files are located.
LICENSE
This program is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation. See the built-in help of Midnight Commander for details on the License and the lack of warranty.
AVAILABILITY
The latest version of this program can be found at http://ftp.midnight-commander.org/.
SEE ALSO
cooledit(1), mc(1), gpm(1), terminfo(1), scanf(3).
AUTHORS
Paul Sheer (psheer@obsidian.co.za) is the original author of Midnight Commander's internal editor.
BUGS
Bugs should be reported to http://www.midnight-commander.org/.
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