Text Editor
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
A text editor is a computer program to write plain text. While most of the time they are used only for quick and dirty jobs, some of them have baffling functionalities tailored to some specific application domains.
Definition
A text editor is a piece of software that enables you to enter text into your computer. This text is saved exactly as you have typed it, with no other information (formatting especially, this is the difference with word processors). These files are sometimes said to be saved in ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) or as text files.
Uses
The use of text editors is limited to applications where the a pleasing presentation to the human eye is less important than the entered information. Most of the time, they are used to create files that other tools on your computer can use. This means most of the times that you use a text editor for programming purposes (where programming is taken in the wide sense: telling the computer what to do or automating some tasks). That means that some editors have special functionality catering for the needs of programmers: possibility to call other programs with the edited file as input, searching for the matching bracket... on top of more usual functionalities like cut & paste, search & replace.
This question is more academic, but I haven't been able yet to decide if WYSIWYG-editors for HTML are to be counted as text-editors or word processors. My idea is that they should be classified as word processors/publishing software, but on the other hand they produce plain ASCII-files... This is subject for discussion or even a religion war?
What editors are there?
You can always use the editors provided on your computer system, but they are quite basic: while they get the job done, they do not help you a lot. If you are looking for editors with more power that are available on more than one operating system (it is so much easier not to have to start all over again all the time you get to a new machine/OS), you will probably have to look at one of these:
- VI
- EMACS
If your favourite editor is not in the list (with only two entries, the chances are quite high), please let me know, I will be glad to add it (if it is an editor present on different platforms with extended abilities).
