Re: [Bug-ed] [patch] proposal: adding '^' address

[Antonio Diaz Diaz]

Hello Andrew,

Andrew Moore wrote:
> ] Well, accepting the '^' character as an address is not required by POSIX[1].
>
> SUSv4, which you link to above, states:
>
>      Historically, ed accepted the '^' character as an address...
>
> Even Brian W. Kernighan’s ed(1) tutorial, which probably dates back to the 
> early 70’s, references ‘^’ as an address.  What are you thinking?

It is nice that '^' appears in a tutorial from the 70's, but as POSIX 
does not require it, introducing such an historical "feature" in GNU ed 
would just bring confusion. For example, using '^' in a script would not 
be portable.

I think that adding the '^' address is just "historical featuritis".


Best regards,
Antonio.