CLI Getting Started Install

ed install

Links ed, edh and edith into a directory on your PATH.

ed install [--json] [--directory <directory>]

Options

Name	Type / values	Default	What it does
--json	flag	off	Emit JSON on stdout instead of a sentence
--directory <directory>	path, ~ expanded	/usr/local/bin when writable, otherwise ~/.local/bin	Link into this directory instead of the default

--json shape:

{
  "directory": "/Users/pulkit/.local/bin",
  "linked": [
    "ed",
    "edh",
    "edith"
  ],
  "message": null,
  "onPath": true,
  "skipped": []
}

Examples

ed install
ed install --directory ~/bin
ed install --json
/Applications/Edith.app/Contents/MacOS/ed install

A name that is already linked to the right binary is left alone and appears in neither linked nor skipped, so a second ed install in a row reports an empty list and still exits 0. A name occupied by a real file is left alone and listed in skipped, because the installer never overwrites something it did not create. A name occupied by a symlink is replaced whatever it points at, which is how a stale link from an older install gets repaired.

onPath compares the target directory against the entries of PATH after standardising both, so a match is exact rather than textual. When it is false the human output adds note: <directory> is not on PATH on stderr and still exits 0, because the links were made either way.

message is the one failure this command reports: when no ed binary can be found near the running executable it says the ed binary is not present in this build. With --json that lands in the message field and the command exits 0; without --json it becomes an error and exits 1. Read message if you are gating on this in a script.

The installer finds the binaries to link by walking up from the directory of the executable that is running and taking the first directory that holds an executable called ed, checking Contents/MacOS at each step. Run it through a link that is already on your PATH and that search stops at the link directory itself, so ed and edh are relinked onto themselves and stop working, and edith is then reported as skipped because its source no longer resolves. Run it from the copy inside the app, or from the build product, never through the link:

/Applications/Edith.app/Contents/MacOS/ed install
build/Build/Products/Release/ed install --directory $HOME/.local/bin

That second line is what make cli runs. If the self-link has already happened, the first line puts everything back.

Where to go next

• Getting started with ed, the rest of this group
• All ed commands