Linux open file in text editor

How to edit a text file in my terminal

I’m using Linux mint and using the vi command to create text files, now that I created a text file and saved it. How do I get back into to edit the text file again?

6 Answers 6

it, will open up a text editor to edit your file.

Here, you can edit your file in the terminal window.

Open the file again using vi. and then press » i » or press insert key ,

and write the following command

Open the file again using vi. and then press the insert button to begin editing it.

could also run ‘vimtutor’ to learn how to use vi/vim. This of course assumes you have vim (vi’s big brother) if you don’t run ‘sudo apt-get install vim’

If you are still inside the vi editor, you might be in a different mode from the one you want. Hit ESC a couple of times (until it rings or flashes) and then «i» to enter INSERT mode or «a» to enter APPEND mode (they are the same, just start before or after current character).

If you are back at the command prompt, make sure you can locate the file, then navigate to that directory and perform the mentioned «vi helloWorld.txt». Once you are in the editor, you’ll need to check the vi reference to know how to perform the editions you want (you may want to google «vi reference» or «vi cheat sheet»).

Once the edition is done, hit ESC again, then type :wq to save your work or :q! to quit without saving.

For quick reference, here you have a text-based cheat sheet.

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How to open, create, edit, and view a file in Linux

One thing GNU/Linux does as well as any other operating system is give you the tools you need to create and edit text files. Ask ten Linux users to name their favorite text editor, and you might get ten different answers. On this page, we cover some text editors available for Linux.

GUI text editors

This section discusses GUI (graphical user interface) text editing applications for the Linux windowing system, X Windows, more commonly known as X11 or X.

If you are coming from Microsoft Windows, you are no doubt familiar with the classic Windows text editor, Notepad. Linux offers many similar programs, including NEdit, gedit, and geany. Each of these programs are free software, and they each provide roughly the same functionality. It’s up to you to decide which one feels best and has the best interface for you. All three of these programs support syntax highlighting, which helps with editing source code or documents written in a markup language such as HTML (hypertext markup language) or CSS (cascading style sheets).

NEdit

NEdit, which is short for the Nirvana Editor, is a straightforward text editor that is similar to Notepad. It uses a Motif-style interface.

The NEdit homepage is located at https://sourceforge.net/projects/nedit/. If you are on a Debian or Ubuntu system, you can install NEdit with the following command:

sudo apt-get install nedit

For more information, see our NEdit information page.

Geany

Geany is a text editor that is a lot like Notepad++ for Windows. It provides a tabbed interface for working with multiple open files at once and has nifty features like displaying line numbers in the margin. It uses the GTK+ interface toolkit.

The Geany homepage is located at http://www.geany.org/. On Debian and Ubuntu systems, you can install Geany by running the command:

sudo apt-get install geany

Gedit

Gedit is the default text editor of the GNOME desktop environment. It’s a great, text editor that can be used on about any Linux system.

The Gedit homepage is located at https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Gedit. On Debian and Ubuntu systems, Gedit can be installed by running the following command:

sudo apt-get install gedit

Terminal-based text editors

If you are working from the Linux command line interface and you need a text editor, you have many options. Here are some popular ones:

pico

pico started out as the editor built into the text-based e-mail program pine, and it was eventually packaged as a stand-alone program for editing text files. («pico» is a scientific prefix for small things.)

The modern version of pine is called alpine, but pico is still called pico. You can find more information about how to use it in our pico command documentation.

On Debian and Ubuntu Linux systems, you can install pico using the command:

sudo apt-get install alpine-pico

nano

nano is the GNU (GNU’s Not Unix) version of pico and is essentially the same program under a different name.

On Debian and Ubuntu Linux systems, nano can be installed with the command:

vim

vim, which stands for «vi improved,» is a text editor used by millions of computing professionals all over the world. Its controls are a little confusing at first, but once you get the hang of them, vim makes executing complex editing tasks fast and easy. For more information, see our in-depth vim guide.

On Debian and Ubuntu Linux systems, vim can be installed using the command:

emacs

emacs is a complex, highly customizable text editor with a built-in interpreter for the Lisp programming language. It is used religiously by some computer programmers, especially those who write computer programs in Lisp dialects such as Scheme. For more information, see our emacs information page.

On Debian and Ubuntu Linux systems, emacs can be installed using the command:

sudo apt-get install emacs

Redirecting command output into a text file

When at the Linux command line, you sometimes want to create or make changes to a text file without actually running a text editor. Here are some commands you might find useful.

Creating an empty file with the touch command

To create an empty file, it’s common to use the command touch. The touch command updates the atime and mtime attributes of a file as if the file’s contents had been changed — without actually changing anything. If you touch a file that doesn’t exist, the system creates the file without putting any data inside.

The above command creates a new, empty file called myfile.txt if that file does not already exist.

Redirecting text into a file

Sometimes you need to stick the output of a command into a file. To accomplish this quickly and easily, you can use the > symbol to redirect the output to a file.

For instance, the echo command is used to «echo» text as output. By default, this goes to the standard output — the screen. So the command:

The above command prints that text on your screen and return you to the command prompt. However, you can use > to redirect this output to a file. For instance:

echo "Example text" > myfile.txt

The above command puts the text «Example text» into the file myfile.txt. If myfile.txt does not exist, it is created. If it already exists, its contents will be overwritten, destroying the previous contents and replacing them.

Be careful when redirecting output to a file using >. It will overwrite the previous file’s contents if it already exists. There is no undo for this operation, so make sure you want to completely replace the file’s contents before you run the command.

Here’s an example using another command:

The above command executes ls with the -l option, which gives a detailed list of files in the current directory. The > operator redirects the output to the file directory.txt, instead of printing it to the screen. If directory.txt does not exist, it is created first. If it already exists, its contents will be replaced.

Redirecting to the end of a file

The redirect operator >> is similar to >, but instead of overwriting the file contents, it appends the new data to the end of the file. For instance, the command:

The above command takes the output of ls -l and adds it to directory.txt. If directory.txt does not exist, it is created first. If it already exists, the output of ls -l is added to the end of the file, one line after the existing content.

Related information

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How To Open A File In Linux Using 3 Different Approaches

Linux is a widely used open-source operating system that many programmers, IT professionals, and everyday consumers utilize. In Linux, we can display various file formats such as text files, audio files, videos, images, docs, pdf, or any other file contents. How to open a file in Linux is one of the core steps that any Linux user must know.

Before proceeding further, it’s crucial to know that Linux offers a variety of text editors and file managers that may be used to open and edit files. Linux also has a command-line interface that may be used to open files using different commands. In this article, we are going to discuss three different ways through which you can easily open and view a file in Linux.

Opening a Linux file using a File Manager

Linux provides several file managers that can be used to navigate and manage different kinds of files. Some of the popular file managers in Linux are Nautilus, Thunar, and PCManFM. To open a file using a file manager, follow the steps below:

Step 1: Open the file manager by clicking on the File Manager icon in the Application menu.

Step 2: Move to the location (file path) where the source file is already stored.

Step 3: Click on the file to open it. If the file is a text file, it will be opened in the default text editor.

Opening a Linux file using a Text Editor

Linux provides several text editors that can be used to edit text files. Some of the popular text editors in Linux are Nano, Vim, and Emacs. To open a file using a text editor, follow the steps below:

Step 1: Launch the text editor by typing the text editor name in the terminal. For example, to launch Vim, type «vim» in the terminal and press Enter.

Step 2: Scroll down to the location where the file is stored with the help of file navigation commands of the text editor.

Step 3: Open the file by typing the filename and pressing Enter.

Opening a Linux file using Command Line Interface

Linux provides a command-line interface that can be used to open files using various commands. The command will also work with other common file extensions. Following are some useful file commands to open a file from the terminal:

1. The cat Command

The cat command in Linux is a useful utility that is used to concatenate, display and create files in the terminal. The cat command is often used to display the contents of a complete file in the terminal window without actually opening it in a text editor or file manager. It prints the file content to the standard output in the default editor.

To display the content of the original file run the following file command in the terminal:

2. The less Command

The less command in Linux allows you to view the contents of a file one page at a time. Unlike the cat command, which displays the entire contents of a file in the terminal window, the less command is designed to handle large configuration files and allows you to scroll through the contents of an entire file one page at a time. It also supports better handling of binary files.

Run the following command in the terminal:

3. The head Command

The head command in Linux allows you to view the first few lines of a file by default. The head command is commonly used when you want to quickly preview the contents of a file without having to open the entire previous file.

To open a file by using the head command, run the following command in the terminal:

4. The tail Command

The tail command in Linux allows you to view the last few lines of the default file. The tail command is commonly used when you want to monitor the end of a log file or other constantly updating target file type.

Run the following command in the terminal text editor:

5. The more Command

The more command is another useful utility in Linux for opening files. It allows you to view the content in a file one screen at a time, allowing you to scroll through the current file and easily view its contents.

Open the terminal and run the following command:

6. The nl Command

In Linux, the nl command is used to add line numbers to a file. We can use this command in the same way as the cat command, and the only difference is that nl has line numbers enabled by default.

To open and view a file using nl command, run the following in the terminal window:

Conclusion

Opening and viewing a file in Linux is a very easy process. Every Linux user should be familiar with the fundamental process of opening a file. Many text editors, file managers, and command-line tools are available in Linux. The different methods mentioned above make it simple to open files in Linux and start editing them.

We hope now you have a good understanding of how to open a file in Linux. Here are some other suggested reads:

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