SD editor “Data contains non-printing characters”

[srucka]

Hi

Thank you for you work on SD! I have it installed on Ubuntu.

When i use the editor, i get this sometimes: Data contains non-printing characters. Please re-enter

How do i stop this? 

Thank you.

[John Wells]

John Wells

Tower Systems, Inc.

714/731-0491

http://www.towersys.com

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[D M]

Which editor are you using ED, SED or MICRO or other??

[srucka]

I was using ED. Use SED instead?

[Nextjob]

Looking at the code for ED shows this message being given when input entered to the editor prompt contains an invalid character (valid characters are define as ASCII characters in the decimal range of 32 - 126, and interestingly 128 - 250).  The qm 2.6-6 manual states ED has the following command: 
^ - Toggles non-printing character expansion mode. When this mode is enabled, non-printing

    characters are displayed as ^nnn where nnn is the decimal character number.

qm 2.6-6 manual, ED - misc commands:

You may want to give it a try.

[Steven Martin Trimble]

check here for ScarletDME 2.6-6 documentation

https://scarl.cdmiweb.com/

hope this helps someone 😃

CDMI

Steven Trimble

(501) 772-3450 cell/text

cdm...@gmail.com

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[Wol]

On 07/01/2026 21:14, Nextjob wrote:
> Looking at the code for ED shows this message being given when input
> entered to the editor prompt contains an invalid character (valid
> characters are define as ASCII characters in the decimal range of 32 -
> 126, and interestingly 128 - 250).

Bear in mind the upper half of the extended ascii set includes the
marks, @tm, @sm, @vm, @fm and @im, you want to be able to edit them in a
line editor. And if you can do that, why not also the Latin- extensions,
etc etc. Incidentally, that upper range is 128 - 253, and the only
reason 254 and 255 aren't there is 255 is @im that separates records in
a hashed file, and 254 is @fm, which is the hashed-file equivalent of
<linefeed>

> The qm 2.6-6 manual states ED has
> the following command:
> ^ - Toggles non-printing character expansion mode. When this mode is
> enabled, non-printing
>     characters are displayed as ^nnn where nnn is the decimal character
> number.
> qm 2.6-6 manual, ED - misc commands:
> You may want to give it a try.
>

And all this is stuff I remember from Pr1me INFORMATION in the 80s. ED
was a Pr1me utility. Probably a brother to Unix ed and sed, I suspect
they both inherited it from Multics, although I don't know where ^
originally came from.

Something of the sort certainly makes sense - you want to see
unprintable characters somehow.

Cheers,
Wol