chris@politik.UUCP (Christopher Seiwald) (11/11/84)
I recall seeing a text file with ex commands at the beginning, e.g. (some characters):set wrapmargin=10 It seemed like ex was meant to source the lines when starting up. Does this work and is it documented? Thanks. -- ---- Christopher Seiwald dual!ptsfa!politik!chris
david@ukma.UUCP (David Herron) (11/29/84)
I've noticed something similar when editing my sys file for readnews. Vi gives a complaint along the lines of "net: bad command". One of these days I'll track it down....
wcs@ho95b.UUCP (Bill Stewart) (11/29/84)
Chris Seiwald at politik asked about a file he saw with ex/vi commands at the beginning, and wondered whether this worked. It does. The documentation for this is in a report by Mark Horton describing the changes to vi versions 3.1 through 3.5. If the first 5 or last 5 lines of your file contain the following patterns, they will be executed when the file is read: [^:]*ex:valid-ex-commands-including-optional-spaces: [^:]*vi:valid-ex-commands-including-optional-spaces: For example, the line /* ex: set nu ai wm=0 window=23: */ at the beginning of a C program will set the modes to number, autoindent, nowrapmargin, window=23. The important things about the pattern seem to be: no colons before the ex or vi, and no space between the ex or vi and the following colon. Occasionally this feature will bite you. The classic problem is editing a password file where one of the first or last five users has a login ending in ex. tex:Rb.XX/MWDhlj6:801:1:Bob.from.Amarillo:/usr2/tex:/bin/ksh When you edit the file, vi complains that Rb.XX/MWDhlj6 is not a valid editor command, but generally keeps working. (It is possible to create uneditable files this way, or files that do serious damage to the reader. Periodic discussions occur about whether this is a feature or a misfeature; I think it's a very useful feature, but agree that it would be nice to have a vi option that disables/enables it. Bill Stewart -- Bill Stewart AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ 1-201-949-0705 ...!ihnp4!ho95b!wcs
hansen@pegasus.UUCP (Tony L. Hansen) (12/02/84)
< I've noticed something similar when editing my sys file for readnews. < Vi gives a complaint along the lines of "net: bad command". One of < these days I'll track it down.... I believe that the pattern that vi/ex is looking for is ... [ve][ix]: ... meaning that any of vi:, ex:, ei: or vx: would signal the beginning of the command line. Since you exchange news with qusavx, you have a line in your sys file which begins with qusavx:net, hence the message about "net: bad command" from vi/ex. Tony Hansen pegasus!hansen
david@ukma.UUCP (David Herron) (12/02/84)
Ok. So "[^:]*ex:stuff:" will execute stuff as vi/ex commands? So, how come my sys file with a line "qusavx:net.all,...:..." tells me that I have a bad command "net"? Is the v matching "vi" and the x matching "ex"? ----------------------------------------- David Herron; ARPA: "ukma!david"@ANL-MCS (Note the quote marks.) UUCP: unmvax ---\ UUCP: research >-------/----------------- anlams --\ UUCP: boulder --/ / >-!ukma!david UUCP: decvax!ucbvax ---/ cbosgd!hasmed!qusavx --/
brianm@bigtuna.UUCP (Brian Martin) (12/05/84)
> I recall seeing a text file with ex commands at the beginning, e.g. > > (some characters):set wrapmargin=10 > > It seemed like ex was meant to source the lines when starting up. > Does this work and is it documented? Sure, it works, but I don't know where it's documented. Basically, what you want to do is to automatically initialize your editing environment whenever you invoke vi. There are two ways to do it. You can either 1) put the initializing commands in a file called ".exrc" in your HOME directory, or 2) put the initializing commands in a file, and place a ":source" command with a pointer to that file in the "EXINIT" environment variable. I use the second approach (with "sh"), e.g., EXINIT=":source $HOME/.exinit"; export EXINIT My $HOME/.exinit file contains the following text (^[ is ESC, ^V CNTL-V, etc.): set magic autoindent shell=/bin/sh wrapmargin=1 w1200=12 map #1 :w!^V^MGo^V^[:$!mspell^V %^V^M map #2 0i/\<^V^[A\>^V^["zdd@z map #3 :/^Possible^V misspellings:$/+1,$!dict.addto^V^M abbr qmc Queen's Medical Center abbr jabsom John A. Burns School of Medicine abbr dc discontinue abbr ddx differential diagnosis abbr dx diagnosis abbr hx history abbr meds medications abbr pe physical exam abbr perrla pupils are equal, round, and reactive to light and accomodation abbr pta prior to admission abbr ro rule out abbr rx treatment abbr ss symptoms/signs abbr sx symptoms abbr tx therapy Funny thing--whoever compiled vi for our machine severely resctricted the number of macros and abbreviations that I can define. What you see defined above is the maximum that can be defined on our machine (a Dual running System V). Nevertheless, I find the abbreviations and function key mappings very useful. Brian Martin UUCP: ..!{dual,ihnp4,vortex}!islenet!bigtuna!brianm
chris@umcp-cs.UUCP (Chris Torek) (12/08/84)
Re: setting EXINIT to contain a ``:source'' command:
You can also create a file called ``.exrc'' in your home directory,
which ex/vi/view/e/edit/[what's the other one?]---these are all the
same program---will read every time it fires up. But I think the
idea was to have *file dependent* behaviour.
Some vi's will also read ./.exrc.
--
(This line accidently left nonblank.)
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (301) 454-7690
UUCP: {seismo,allegra,brl-bmd}!umcp-cs!chris
CSNet: chris@umcp-cs ARPA: chris@marylandguy@rlgvax.UUCP (Guy Harris) (12/08/84)
> > I recall seeing a text file with ex commands at the beginning, e.g. > > > > (some characters):set wrapmargin=10 > > > > It seemed like ex was meant to source the lines when starting up. > > Does this work and is it documented? > > Sure, it works, but I don't know where it's documented. It's not documented anywhere, for which the author apologized a while ago. > Basically, what you want to do is to automatically initialize your editing > environment whenever you invoke vi. The intent of this feature (those lines are called "mode lines") was to permit the initial ex/vi environment to be dependent on the file you're editing. A laudable goal, I guess (I use neither "vi", which has mode lines in the 3.7 release, nor "emacs", which I believe permits you to do this kind of initializing based on the file type, i.e. on the last component of the file name, like ".c", ".s", etc., and my favorite editor has no modes to be set) but it can trap the unwary. A long time ago, somebody posted changes to make this feature disabled by default and requiring you to set the "modelines" flag to enable it; it sounds like this is the right way to go and it's what we've done on our systems. Guy Harris {seismo,ihnp4,allegra}!rlgvax!guy
mark@elsie.UUCP (Mark J. Miller) (12/10/84)
I just write my own version of vi with the appropriate definitions for the type of directory I'm in. For example, the version of vi I use for typing letters is: #! /bin/sh EXINIT='set terse shell=/bin/csh sw=4 wm=4 aw map! #1 ^V |map! Ow >>$a|map #1 :n |map #3 :ta map ^[Oq Gi/\<^[A\>^["zdd@z map ^[Or 1G!Gvispell^M map ^[OM /Spellist^M map ^[Ol :.,$d^M' export EXINIT exec /usr/local/vi $@ This will start up just as fast as regular vi. -- Mark J. Miller NIH/NCI/DCE/LEC UUCP: decvax!harpo!seismo!elsie!mark Phone: (301) 496-5688
bsa@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery) (12/12/84)
I'm having a problem with .exrc and EXINIT on a Plexus P/35. I generally use a standard set of :set's to make C programming easier, and on ncoast!'s vi, they work well. But on the plexus, which has the same version (v2.13) of vi, any attempt to place a :set in .exrc or $EXINIT will produce a _N_o_ _t_e_x_t_ _i_n_ _b_u_f_f_e_r message. Does anyone know why this might be? Does the Microsoft-hacked ex/vi have a smarter $EXINIT handler? Or am I doing something wrong? ------------- ./.exrc ------------- set autoindent shiftwidth=4 showmatch autowrite --bsa (Just had a thought: MS ex/vi takes that. Maybe (from net examples) the plexus needs a colon in front? But I put one there in $RNINIT...) -- Brandon Allbery @ decvax!cwruecmp!ncoast!bsa (..ncoast!tdi1!bsa business) 6504 Chestnut Road, Independence, Ohio 44131 (216) 524-1416 <<<<<< An equal opportunity employer: I both create and destroy bugs :-) >>>>>>