Since I grew up in the earlier days of ed, before there was a "yank" buffer, I developed habits using temp files that accomplish the same thing
Here's a session where I solve this problem in the way that I've been doing it for over 40 years: ======== Begin ======== $ ed test1 25 ,n 1 test1 text 2 a second line .w /tmp/pj1 14 e test2 11 r /tmp/pj1 14 ,n 1 test2 text 2 a second line ========= End = ======== My temp buffers have names matching "/tmp/pj*", since my login id, this entire time, has been "pj", and I began Unix on a PDP 11/45 shared with others, so it was best to name my temp files in a way unlikely to collide with those of others on the system. Even though "ed" continues to be my primary editor, throughout the years, I did not even know that "yank" existed until just now. There are often 100 or 200 hundred "/tmp/pj*" files in my /tmp directory, dating back many months, with names just sufficiently unique that I can remember what they mean while I am actually and immediately using them. Likely the particular name "/tmp/pj1" is my favorite, and gets re-used several times a day, as it just did now, above. Perhaps some readers of this thread might find the above a useful habit to develop. -- Paul Jackson p...@usa.net