On 2023/02/26 18:13:36 -0700, Ted Bullock <tbullock@comlore.com> wrote:
> [...]

The whole process was already discussed in the other thread, but let
me add two bits of context here

> $ got histedit
> 614
  ^^^

first, here the little ed(1) is trying his best to show that the file
already contains some content.  Poor little ed!  ",p" would have shown
you a no-op script that keeps all the commits.

unfortunately, the default was changed to vi :(

(I'm only semi-serious here :-)

> a
> pick da5cb32e60a7
       ^^^^^^^^^^^^

second, and more importantly, got histedit currently rejects
abbreviated object ids.  That's the source of the "syntax error" you
get a few lines below.

(I think it's handy to have abbreviated ids here, so i've sent a patch
to allow it, but this is the current behaviour.)

> mesg
> .
> w
> 637
> q
> 
> 
> I left it blank because it indicated that I would be given an
> opportunity to craft a longer response than a one liner by opening the
> editor again. See I even used `ed` a little and everything!
> but I got this in response.
> 
> got: histedit syntax error on line 12
> 
> Ok, I guess I didn't print the rest of the file so maybe my second line
> there is line 12? I dunno. I gave up here and started mashing my face
> into this email message. Please send help.

going slightly out of topic, I'd suggest to set EDITOR and/or VISUAL
to your preferred text editor.  Many commands will otherwise assume ed
or vi if these are not set.