Synopsis

dte [-HR] [-c command] [-t ctag] [-r rcfile] [[+line[,column]] file]...
dte [-h|-B|-K|-V|-b rcname|-s file]

Options

-c command
Run command, after reading the rc file and opening any file arguments. See dterc for available commands.
-t ctag
Jump to source location of ctag. Requires tags file generated by ctags.
-r rcfile
Read configuration from rcfile instead of ~/.dte/rc.
-s file
Load file as a dte-syntax file and exit. Any errors encountered are printed to stderr and the exit status is set appropriately.
-b rcname
Dump the contents of the built-in config or syntax file named rcname and exit.
-B
Print a list of all built-in config names that can be used with the -b option and exit.
-H
Don't load history files at startup or save history files on exit (see below). History features will work as usual but will be in-memory only and not persisted to the filesystem.
-R
Don't read the rc file.
-K
Start in a special mode that continuously reads input and prints the symbolic name of each pressed key.
-h
Display the help summary and exit.
-V
Display the version number and exit.

+line,column arguments can be used to specify the initial cursor position of the next file argument. These can also be specified in the format +line:column.

Key Bindings

There are 3 editor modes, each having a different set of key bindings. Bindings can be customized using the bind command (see dterc) or displayed using the show bind command.

The key bindings listed below are in the same format as accepted by the bind command. In particular, key combinations are represented as follows:

Normal Mode

Normal mode is the mode the editor starts in. Pressing basic keys (i.e. without modifiers) simply inserts text into the buffer. There are also various key combinations bound by default:

S-up, S-down, S-left, S-right
Move cursor and select characters
C-S-left, C-S-right
Move cursor and select whole words
C-S-up, C-S-down
Move cursor and select whole lines
C-c
Copy current line or selection
C-x
Cut current line or selection
C-v
Paste
C-z
Undo
C-y
Redo
M-x
Enter command mode
C-f
Enter search mode
F3
Search next
F4
Search previous
C-t, C-n
Open new buffer
M-1, M-2 ... M-9
View buffer 1 (or 2, 3, 4, etc.)
C-w
Close current buffer
C-s
Save
C-q
Quit

Command Mode

Command mode allows running various editor commands using a language similar to Unix shell and can be accessed by pressing M-x (Alt+x) in normal mode. The next and prev commands switch to the next/previous file. The open, save and quit commands should be somewhat self-explanatory. For a full list of available commands, see dterc.

The key bindings for command mode are:

up, down
Browse previous command history.
tab
Auto-complete current command or argument
C-a, home
Go to beginning of command line
C-b, left
Move left
C-c, C-g, Esc
Exit command mode
C-d, delete
Delete
C-e, end
Go to end of command line
C-f, right
Move right
C-k, M-delete
Delete to end of command line
C-u
Delete to beginning of command line
C-w, C-backspace, M-backspace
Erase word

Search Mode

Search mode allows entering a regular expression to search in the current buffer and can be accessed by pressing C-f (Ctrl+f) in normal mode or by running the search command in command mode.

The key bindings for search mode are mostly the same as in command mode, plus these additional keys:

M-c
Toggle case-sensitive-search option.
M-r
Reverse search direction.
Enter
Perform regex search.
M-Enter
Perform plain-text search (escapes the regex).

Environment

The following environment variables are inspected at startup:

DTE_HOME
User configuration directory. Defaults to $HOME/.dte if not set.
HOME
User home directory. Used when expanding ~/ in filenames and also to determine the default value for DTE_HOME.
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR
Directory used to store lock files. Defaults to $DTE_HOME if not set.
TERM
Terminal identifier. Used to determine which terminal capabilities are supported.
COLORTERM
Enables support for 24-bit terminal colors, if set to truecolor or 24bit.

The following environment variables affect various library routines used by dte:

PATH
Colon-delimited list of directory prefixes, as used by execvp to find executables. This affects the exec and compile commands, but only when given a command argument containing no slash characters (/).
TZ
Timezone specification, as used by tzset to initialize time conversion information. This affects file modification times shown by the show buffer command.
LC_CTYPE
locale specification for character types, as used by regcomp, towlower and towupper. This affects the behavior of the case command, any command that takes a regex argument and any regex patterns used in search mode.
LANG
Fallback value for LC_CTYPE (see locale for details).
LC_ALL
Overrides LC_CTYPE and/or LANG, if set (see locale for details).

The following environment variables are set by dte:

DTE_VERSION
Editor version string. This is set at startup to the same version string as shown by dte -V | head -n1.
PWD
Absolute path of the current working directory; set when changing directory with the cd command.
OLDPWD
Absolute path of the previous working directory; set when changing directory with the cd command and also used to determine which directory cd - switches to.

Files

$DTE_HOME/rc
User configuration file. See dterc for a full list of available commands and options or run dte -b rc to see the built-in, default config.
$DTE_HOME/syntax/*
User syntax files. These override the built-in syntax files that come with the program. See dte-syntax for more information or run dte -b syntax/dte for a basic example.
$DTE_HOME/file-history
History of edited files and cursor positions. Used only if the file-history option is enabled.
$DTE_HOME/command-history
History of dterc commands used while in command mode.
$DTE_HOME/search-history
History of search patterns used while in search mode.
$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/dte-locks
List of files currently open in a dte process (if the lock-files option is enabled).

Exit Status

0
Program exited normally.
64
Command-line usage error (see "synopsis" above).
65
Input data error (e.g. data specified by the -s option).
71
Operating system error.
74
Input/output error.
78
Configuration error.

Note: the above exit codes are set by the editor itself, with values in accordance with sysexits. The exit code may also be set to values in the range 0..125 by the quit command.

Examples

Open /etc/passwd with cursor on line 3, column 8:

dte +3:8 /etc/passwd

Run several commands at startup:

dte -c 'set filetype sh; insert -m "#!/bin/sh\n"'

Read a buffer from standard input:

echo 'Hello, World!' | dte

Interactively filter a shell pipeline:

echo 'A B C D E F' | tr ' ' '\n' | dte | tac

Notes

It's advised to NOT run shell pipelines with multiple interactive programs that try to control the terminal. For example:

echo "Don't run this example!!" | dte | less

A shell will run these processes in parallel and both dte and less will then try to control the terminal at the same time; clobbering the input/output of both.