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MCEDIT(1) GNU Midnight Commander MCEDIT(1)
NAME
mcedit - Internal file editor of GNU Midnight Commander.
SYNOPSIS
mcedit [-bcCdfhstVx?] [+lineno] [file1] [file2] ...
mcedit [-bcCdfhstVx?] file1:lineno[:] file2:lineno[:] ...
DESCRIPTION
mcedit is a link to mc, the main GNU Midnight Commander exe‐
cutable. Executing GNU Midnight Commander under this name runs the
internal editor and opens 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 only the last one will be used, 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 Com‐
mander 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 ter‐
minals (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. Maximum 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 highlight‐
ing (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 edi‐
tor 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 high‐
lighting (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 inter‐
active 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. Oth‐
erwise 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 for navigation through code with tags files
created by etags or ctags commands. If there is no TAGS file code
navigation will not work. For example, in case of exuberant-ctags
for C language command will be:
ctags -e --language-force=C -R ./
Meta-Enter shows list box to select item under cursor (cursor
should stand at the end of the word).
Meta-Minus where minus is symbol "-" goes to previous function in
navigation list (like browser's Back button).
Meta-Equal where equal is symbol "=" goes to next function in nav‐
igation list (like browser's Forward button).
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 ~/.con‐
fig/mc/mcedit/Syntax is rescanned on opening of every new editor
file. The file contains rules for highlighting, each of which is
given on a separate line, and define which keywords will be high‐
lighted with 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 spec‐
ifies 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 pre‐
processor directive to continue across multiple lines.
The possible colors are: black, gray, red, brightred, green,
brightgreen, brown, yellow, blue, brightblue, magenta, brightma‐
genta, 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 sup‐
ported 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 compli‐
cated 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 highlight‐
ing 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_TA‐
BLE 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 be set from 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 speci‐
fied, a 1 sets the option to on, and a 0 sets it to off, as 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 character. Rather insert spaces (ascii
32) 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 immediately, truncat‐
ing the disk file to zero length (i.e. erasing it) and
then 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
a problem, the original file is untouched. When the tempo‐
rary file is successfully written, it is renamed to the
name of the original file, thus replacing it. The safest
method is create backups (2): 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 at. Default is 72.
editor_backup_extension
Symbol to add to name of backup files. Default is "~".
editor_line_state
Show state line of editor. Currently it shows current line
number (in the future it might show things like folding,
breakpoints, etc.). M-n toggles this option.
editor_visible_spaces
Toggle "show visible trailing spaces". If editor_visi‐
ble_spaces=1, they are shown as '.'
editor_visible_tabs
Toggle "show visible tabs". If editor_visible_tabs=1, tabs
are shown as '<---->'
editor_persistent_selections
Do not remove block selection after cursor movement.
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 confirmation 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
Combine UNDO actions for several of the same type of action
(inserting/overwriting, deleting, navigating, typing)
editor_wordcompletion_collect_entire_file
Search autocomplete candidates in entire file (1) or just
from beginning 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 obtained using
'aspell' utility). Use spell_language = NONE to disable
aspell support. Default value is 'en'. Option must be
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 beginning of line, that
line and all following lines of paragraph will be
untouched. Default value is "-+*\,.;:&>".
editor_state_full_filename
Show full path name in the status line. If disabled
(default), only base name of the file is shown.
MISCELLANEOUS
The editor also displays non-us characters (160+). When editing
binary files, you should set display bits to 7 bits in Midnight
Commander's options menu to keep the spacing clean.
FILES
/usr/share/mc/help/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 miss‐
ing.
/usr/share/mc/mc.lib
Global settings for 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 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.mid‐
night-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 Mid‐
night Commander's internal editor.
BUGS
Bugs should be reported to http://www.midnight-commander.org/.
MC Version 4.8.24 January 2020 MCEDIT(1)