VMS EDT - How to select the complete content of the file?

I have been using VMS EDT for a while. I would be editing/ replacing large number of lines in the text files and saving it as a different version.

As for as I am aware, the only way to delete the characters in the text file is pressing delete key. This process is quite slow, as on one press, only one character is deleted.

Hence I wanted to know, Is there a way to quickly select multiple lines in vms edit?

Do you mean EDT? If so, it's been a long time since I worked on VMS much, and I don't have a system running it on which to confirm the following. However, I found an old manual and Google turned up what look like a number of useful web sites, including this one. If you are using EDT, here's one method that should work:

• Start EDT on the file you want to clean out.
• If you are started in line mode, go into keypad mode by typing c and
• Make sure you're at the top of the file (or the point at which you want to start deleting).
• Mark the start of the text you want to delete by hitting the keypad "." key.
• Move to the end of the text you want to delete. If you want to go to the end of the file, hit the GOLD key (probably the keypad "7" if you're logged in remotely) and then the keypad "4".
• Press the keypad "6" to cut the file's contents. Note that this puts the selected text into the cut/paste buffer. You can paste it at the cursor point with GOLD then the keypad "6".

You can also delete text from EDT's line mode using the D command. The syntax is

Dn1:n2

where n1 is the first line to delete and n2 is the last line to delete. I don't remember what happens if you do

D1:

and couldn't find that documented, but it may be worth a try if you want to delete the entire file's contents and don't know the last line number.

Good luck!