Provided by: mc-data_4.8.15-2_all bug

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 requests staring the internal editor and opening 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 the last one will be actual 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.
       Maximim 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 to navigation through code with tags files created by  etags  or  ctags  commands.  If
       there  is  no  file  TAGS  code  navigation would not work.  In example, in case of exuberant-ctags for C
       language command will be:

       ctags -e --language-force=C -R ./

       Meta-Enter show list box to select item under cursor (cusor should stand at end of word).

       Meta-Minus where minus is symbol "-" go to previous function in navigation list (like a browser Back).

       Meta-Equal where equal is symbol "=" go to next function in navigation list (like a browser Forward).

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 a any 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 to 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  now be set from the editors 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 is 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 space. Rather insert spaces (ascii 20h) 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 by immediately, truncating the disk file
              to zero length (i.e.  erasing it) and the 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 an
              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).  Where 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. 72 default.

       editor_backup_extension
              symbol for add extension to name of backup files. Default "~".

       editor_line_state
              show state line of editor now it show number of file line (in  future  it  can  show  things  like
              folding, breakpoints, etc.). M-n toglle this option.

       editor_visible_spaces
              Toggle show visible trailing spaces (TWS), if editor_visible_spaces=1 TWS showed as '.'

       editor_visible_tabs
              Toggle show visible tabs, if editor_visible_tabs=1 tabs showed as '<---->'

       editor_persistent_selections
              Do not remove block selection after moving the cursor.

       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 confirm 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
              do  UNDO  for  several  of  the  same type of action (inserting/overwriting, deleting, navigating,
              typing)

       editor_wordcompletion_collect_entire_file
              Search autocomplete candidates in entire of file or just from begin 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
              get  using  'aspell' utility).  Use spell_language = NONE to disable aspell support. Default value
              is 'en'. Option must 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  begin
              of  line,  that  line  and  all  following  lines of paragraph will be untouched. Default value is
              "-+*\,.;:&>".

       editor_state_full_filename
              Show full file name in the status line. If disabled, the only file name 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 the Midnight Commander 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 the 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 the 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 the Midnight Commander's internal editor.

BUGS

       Bugs should be reported to http://www.midnight-commander.org/.