True, but if the file isn't that big, then the difference isn't noticable. Being able to do something like /some string/-2 d Which deletes a line 2 lines a

True, but if the file isn't that big, then the difference isn't noticable. Being able to do something like /some string/-2 d Which deletes a line 2 lines above where some string matched is something that's trivial to do in ed, but takes a bit of work in sed.