I like using the traditional ex editor for simple command line operations, to re-arrange text within files. For example for a simple moving lines across in a file I would use something like
foo
bar
zoo
dude
to move the text dude after foo I would just do
printf '%s\n' '/dude' 'd' '/foo' '-' 'put' 'wq' | ex file
which means move to pattern dude, put the line in buffer and paste it after foo and wq to close the file.
This works fine so far, but I want to insert my custom text to the file, given for example
example
//commented
abc
def
I need to add another text above //commented if pattern abc matches i.e. in a file if abc is present and above it if a line starting with // exists add another line //new text, so it should look like
example
//new text
//commented
abc
def
I tried to do below, using itextESC to insert text, but it is not working.
printf '%s\n' '/abc' '-' '/\/\/' 'itextESC' 'wq' | ex file
I would like to make this work in ed or ex to explore more about this tool. Would appreciate insights if ed/ex can be used for such trivial tasks like this.
