How to edit/save a file through Ubuntu Terminal

This is quite a simple question: I just need to open a file (this filename is galfit.feedme). I can view the file with view galfit.feedme when I'm in the directory, but I do not know how to edit this file and then save the edit. How do you do that?

10.4k 13 13 gold badges 68 68 silver badges 79 79 bronze badges asked Jul 8, 2013 at 20:28 vdogsandman vdogsandman 5,377 8 8 gold badges 22 22 silver badges 22 22 bronze badges

5 Answers 5

Normal text editors are nano or vi .

root@user:# nano galfit.feedme 
root@user:# vi galfit.feedme
7,389 6 6 gold badges 51 51 silver badges 63 63 bronze badges answered Jul 8, 2013 at 20:33 Nick Anthony Paruta Nick Anthony Paruta 1,446 1 1 gold badge 10 10 silver badges 3 3 bronze badges

For editing use 

vi galfit.feedme //if user has file editing permissions 
sudo vi galfit.feedme //if user doesn't have file editing permissions

For inserting 

Press i //Do required editing

For exiting 

Press Esc :wq //for exiting and saving :q! //for exiting without saving
363 3 3 silver badges 14 14 bronze badges answered Apr 7, 2014 at 10:35 Abhishek Gupta Abhishek Gupta 4,126 25 25 silver badges 27 27 bronze badges Remember to restart. I wish you didn't have to. Commented Aug 5, 2015 at 20:49

If you are not root user then, use following commands:

There are two ways to do it -

sudo vi path_to_file/file_name

Press Esc and then type below respectively

:wq //save and exit :q! //exit without saving
  1. sudo nano path_to_file/file_name

When using nano: after you finish editing press ctrl+x then it will ask save Y/N.
If you want to save press Y, if not press N. And press enter to exit the editor.