Yeah, ed is really, really basic. It doesn't have support for key chords/arrow keys to move the current line cursor around. The implementation of ed embedded in busybox doesn't work that way either when I tested and I don't see anything in the source on a quick scan that would support it.
If you're just trying to move the cursor around in a single line you're typing, that sounds like a terminal setting issue, not anything ed-specific. On Tue, Jun 8, 2021 at 10:58 AM Jackson Benete <jacksonben...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hello there, > I'm not used to interacting with mailing lists, I hope this will be sent > correctly. > > I was using ed with alpine and trying to follow the GNU ed Manual. > Things were behaving differently and It took me a while to realize that I > was using `BusyBox ed` and not really `GNU ed`. > > I've compiled GNU ed then, and succeeded using it and following the Manual. > > One thing caught my attention though and I'm really missing it right now. > I've noticed that on the ed version bundled with BusyBox (v1.32.1) it had > the commands to move around just like I'm used to in Bash and Emacs, which > is C-a, C-e, M-f, M-b... > For some reason when I try to move around in my compiled version of GNU ed > (1.17) I will instead get the escape sequences like `^A` for `C-a` or `^[a` > for `M-a`. > Even the arrow keys don't work and print escape sequences. If I need to > correct something I need to delete everything with backspaces or C-u and > start over again. > > I tried using ed in a pubnix machine over ssh and it also didn't work (it > was v1.16). > > There is some flag that I can activate during compilation to enable this, > or maybe any command or flag during ed execution that can be activated? > Or did BusyBox hacked ed code for those commands to work and they maintain > their own modified ed project? > > Thanks for your attention and for maintaining ed. > > Jackson Benete >