Edlin is aline editor, and the onlytext editor provided with early versions ofIBM PC DOS,^[1]MS-DOS andOS/2.^[2] Although superseded in MS-DOS 5.0 and later by the full-screenMS-DOS Editor, and byNotepad inMicrosoft Windows, it continues to be included in the 32-bit versions of current Microsoft operating systems.

Edlin was created byTim Paterson in two weeks in 1980, forSeattle Computer Products's86-DOS (QDOS)^[3] based on theCP/M context editorED,^[4][5] itself distantly inspired by theDEC PDP-10TOPS-10 EDIT text editor.

Microsoft acquired 86-DOS and, after some further development, sold it as MS-DOS, so Edlin was included in v1.0–v5.0 of MS-DOS. From MS-DOS 6 onwards, the only editor included was the new full-screenMS-DOS Editor.

Windows 95,98 andME ran on top of an embedded version of DOS, which reports itself asMS-DOS 7. As a successor to MS-DOS 6, this did not include Edlin.

However, Edlin is included in the 32-bit versions ofWindows NT^[6] and its derivatives—up to and includingWindows 10—because theNTVDM's DOS support in those operating systems is based on MS-DOS version 5.0. However, unlike most other external DOS commands, it has not been transformed into a nativeWin32 program. It also does not supportlong filenames, which were not added to MS-DOS and Windows until long after Edlin was written.

TheFreeDOS version was developed by Gregory Pietsch.^[7]

There are only a few commands. The short list can be found by entering a ? at the edlin prompt.

When a file is open, typing L lists the contents (e.g.,1,6L lists lines 1 through 6). Each line is displayed with a line number in front of it.

*1,6L       1: Edlin: The only text editor in early versions of DOS.       2:       3: Back in the day, I remember seeing web pages       4: branded with a logo at the bottom:       5: "This page created in edlin."       6: The things that some people put themselves through. ;-)*

The currently selected line has a *. To replace the contents of any line, the line number is entered and any text entered replaces the original. While editing a line pressing Ctrl-C cancels any changes. The * marker remains on that line.

Entering I (optionally preceded with a line number) inserts one or more lines before the * line or the line given. When finished entering lines, Ctrl-C returns to the edlin command prompt.

*6I       6:*(...or similar)       7:*^C  *7D*L       1: Edlin: The only text editor in early versions of DOS.       2:       3: Back in the day, I remember seeing web pages       4: branded with a logo at the bottom:       5: "This page created in edlin."       6: (...or similar)*

i - Inserts lines of text.

D - deletes the specified line, again optionally starting with the number of a line, or a range of lines. E.g.:2,4d deletes lines 2 through 4. In the above example, line 7 was deleted.

R - is used to replace all occurrences of a piece of text in a given range of lines, for example, to replace a spelling error. Including the ? prompts for each change. E.g.: To replace 'prit' with 'print' and to prompt for each change:?rprit^Zprint (the ^Z represents pressing CTRL-Z). It is case-sensitive.

S - searches for given text. It is used in the same way as replace, but without the replacement text. A search for 'apple' in the first 20 lines of a file is typed1,20?sapple (no space, unless that is part of the search) followed by a press of enter. For each match, it asks if it is the correct one, and accepts n or y (or Enter).

P - displays a listing of a range of lines. If no range is specified, P displays the complete file from the * to the end. This is different from L in that P changes the current line to be the last line in the range.

T - transfers another file into the one being edited, with this syntax: [line to insert at]t[full path to file].

W - (write) saves the file.

E - saves the file and quits edlin.

Q - quits edlin without saving.

Edlin may be used as a non-interactive file editor in scripts byredirecting a series of edlin commands.

edlin < script

AGPL-licensedclone of Edlin that includes long filename support is available for download as part of theFreeDOS project. This runs on operating systems such asLinux orUnix as well as MS-DOS.^[8]

• List of DOS commands
• ed andex, similarUnix line editors.
• 86-DOS

• Microsoft Operating System/2 User's Reference(PDF).Microsoft. 1987.

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of:Guide to Windows Commands

• Edlin | Microsoft Docs
• MS-DOS edlin command help
• Open source EDLIN implementation that comes with MS-DOS v2.0

• Windows commands
• 1980 software
• Console applications
• DOS text editors
• Line editor
• OS/2 commands
• Microsoft free software
• Windows components
• Windows text editors