Re: [Bug-ed] Bug#461798: warn earlier about readonly files

[Antonio Diaz Diaz]

address@hidden wrote:
> Did I mention that ed should warn earlier that a file is readonly?

I think Paul Jackson has already responded your question:

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I would not agree that's a problem, and I would disagree that
such a change should be made.
 1) Sometimes I edit a read only file, as a convenient way to
    do other sorts of operations on it.  Opening to read a
    read-only file is not an error
 2) If and when I do try to write out changes to a read-only
    file, it's easy to deal with the write error by writing my
    changes out to a tmp file, quitting ed, and applying the
    changes some other way.
 3) ed is legacy software - most users and usages have been
    around a long time.  One should not tweak discretionary
    details of ed; fix real bugs, but leave the details that
    are cosmetic or a matter of opinion or fashion -alone-.
    Each non-essential change to ed breaks something or some
    usage.
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Regards,
Antonio.