

When used in its most raw form, this command simply echos the following string to the screen. You may already be familiar with the echo command. This can be useful knowledge if you need to automate such a process with BASH scripts. It is possible to input and read data from files using terminal commands directly. If you specifically wanted to use an editor, you may want to skip ahead to here.
#Command line text editor how to#
cd ~/Desktopįirst we will look at how to create files and input information into them directly from the terminal prompt. I will be using a MacOS terminal and the desktop. Navigate to a directory whereby you don’t mind creating a few test files. Go ahead and open a terminal window if you haven’t done so already. First we will look at some commands that allow us to manipulate files directly from the command line, then we will look at some file editor programs. There are several ways to edit files using the command line.
#Command line text editor full#
This is especially true for Linux users who might be using a virtual terminal and are in a full screen terminal window, unable to access elements from the GUI. It is far quicker to type a quick command than it is to click through a series of menus in order to locate a text editor program! Secondly, if you are working with the terminal it can just be more efficient to use the terminal to edit or save a file. In which case you may opt to run only the Linux command line. With the uprising of embedded electronics and the popularity of Raspberry Pi, you may very well be using something like the Pi without a GUI.Ī GUI can be an unnecessary overhead for a small computer like the Pi, especially the Pi Zero.

Well firstly that last statement isn’t entirely true. In today’s day and age it is very unlikely that you will be working without a GUI and access to a text editor program, so why use the terminal?
