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17<title>Debugging with GDB: Edit</title>
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64<a name="Edit"></a>
65<div class="header">
66<p>
67Next: <a href="Search.html#Search" accesskey="n" rel="next">Search</a>, Previous: <a href="Specify-Location.html#Specify-Location" accesskey="p" rel="previous">Specify Location</a>, Up: <a href="Source.html#Source" accesskey="u" rel="up">Source</a> &nbsp; [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Concept-Index.html#Concept-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
68</div>
69<hr>
70<a name="Editing-Source-Files"></a>
71<h3 class="section">9.3 Editing Source Files</h3>
72<a name="index-editing-source-files"></a>
73
74<a name="index-edit"></a>
75<a name="index-e-_0028edit_0029"></a>
76<p>To edit the lines in a source file, use the <code>edit</code> command.
77The editing program of your choice
78is invoked with the current line set to
79the active line in the program.
80Alternatively, there are several ways to specify what part of the file you
81want to print if you want to see other parts of the program:
82</p>
83<dl compact="compact">
84<dt><code>edit <var>location</var></code></dt>
85<dd><p>Edit the source file specified by <code>location</code>.  Editing starts at
86that <var>location</var>, e.g., at the specified source line of the
87specified file.  See <a href="Specify-Location.html#Specify-Location">Specify Location</a>, for all the possible forms
88of the <var>location</var> argument; here are the forms of the <code>edit</code>
89command most commonly used:
90</p>
91<dl compact="compact">
92<dt><code>edit <var>number</var></code></dt>
93<dd><p>Edit the current source file with <var>number</var> as the active line number.
94</p>
95</dd>
96<dt><code>edit <var>function</var></code></dt>
97<dd><p>Edit the file containing <var>function</var> at the beginning of its definition.
98</p></dd>
99</dl>
100
101</dd>
102</dl>
103
104<a name="Choosing-Your-Editor"></a>
105<h4 class="subsection">9.3.1 Choosing Your Editor</h4>
106<p>You can customize <small>GDB</small> to use any editor you want
107<a name="DOCF10" href="#FOOT10"><sup>10</sup></a>.
108By default, it is <samp>/bin/ex</samp>, but you can change this
109by setting the environment variable <code>EDITOR</code> before using
110<small>GDB</small>.  For example, to configure <small>GDB</small> to use the
111<code>vi</code> editor, you could use these commands with the <code>sh</code> shell:
112</p><div class="smallexample">
113<pre class="smallexample">EDITOR=/usr/bin/vi
114export EDITOR
115gdb &hellip;
116</pre></div>
117<p>or in the <code>csh</code> shell,
118</p><div class="smallexample">
119<pre class="smallexample">setenv EDITOR /usr/bin/vi
120gdb &hellip;
121</pre></div>
122
123<div class="footnote">
124<hr>
125<h4 class="footnotes-heading">Footnotes</h4>
126
127<h3><a name="FOOT10" href="#DOCF10">(10)</a></h3>
128<p>The only restriction is that your editor (say <code>ex</code>), recognizes the
129following command-line syntax:
130</p><div class="smallexample">
131<pre class="smallexample">ex +<var>number</var> file
132</pre></div>
133<p>The optional numeric value +<var>number</var> specifies the number of the line in
134the file where to start editing.</p>
135</div>
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