Re: Cut buffer does not persist between files

[Brian Zwahr]

Thanks, Paul! You're not the first to recommend using temporary files. I'll 
have to give that a shot. Thanks for that! Since the files you use are in /tmp, 
do you have them automatically cleaned up somehow, or do you just let them pile 
up and manually delete them if/when you need to?

On Wed, Dec 4, 2019, at 9:21 PM, Paul Jackson wrote:
> Since I grew up in the earlier days of ed, before there
> was a "yank" buffer, I developed habits using temp
> files that accomplish the same thing
> 
> Here's a session where I solve this problem in the
> way that I've been doing it for over 40 years:
> 
> ======== Begin ========
> $ ed test1
> 25
> ,n
> 1     test1 text
> 2     a second line
> .w /tmp/pj1
> 14
> e test2
> 11
> r /tmp/pj1
> 14
> ,n
> 1     test2 text
> 2     a second line
> ========= End = ========
> 
> My temp buffers have names matching "/tmp/pj*",
> since my login id, this entire time, has been "pj",
> and I began Unix on a PDP 11/45 shared with others,
> so it was best to name my temp files in a way unlikely
> to collide with those of others on the system.
> 
> Even though "ed" continues to be my primary editor,
> throughout the years, I did not even know that "yank"
> existed until just now.
> 
> There are often 100 or 200 hundred "/tmp/pj*" files
> in my /tmp directory, dating back many months,
> with names just sufficiently unique that I can
> remember what they mean while I am actually
> and immediately using them.  Likely the particular
> name "/tmp/pj1" is my favorite, and gets re-used
> several times a day, as it just did now, above.
> 
> Perhaps some readers of this thread might find
> the above a useful habit to develop.
> 
> -- 
>                 Paul Jackson
>                 address@hidden
> 
>