[comp.editors] vi in SCO UNIX

ronald@robobar.Co.Uk (Ronald S H Khoo) (01/02/91)

[ I've crossposted to USENET because I'm hoping someone has an answer to
  a question regarding the SVR3 vi in general ]

In article <9101012058.AA04469@jpr.com> on the SCO mailing list
jpr@jpr.com wrote:

> This is a mapping which I used daily in SCO Xenix to compose replies to
> CompuServe messages.
> 
> map  #1  ?#: [0-9][0-9].* S[0-9][0-9]*/?Wyt N<<Ore^[pmao/post unf^[mbO
> 
> It fails in SCO Unix. Does anyone know what they've changed in vi, besides
> using terminfo instead of termcap?

Regular expressions in SCO Unix vi seem to be severely broken, I *think*
it's closure of a character class that does it.  "ver" on SCO Unix says
SVR3.1, does anyone know if the base port for that has such problems?

Anyway, personally, I gave up with the SCO Unix vi and use the SCO
Xenix vi instead.  Doing that does pose problems, like % substitution
doesn't work from the :! mode (top bit gets set), but that's a lot
less hassle than broken regular expressions.

The Xenix vi is directly descended from the BSD (no AT&T parentage other
than the original ed code) "ver" says 3.7 6/10/83.  Putting the
date in is so much more informative than just "SVR3.1".

	$ cat /dev/icbm > AT&T.

-- 
ronald@robobar.co.uk +44 81 991 1142 (O) +44 71 229 7741 (H)

jpr@jpradley.jpr.com (Jean-Pierre Radley) (01/02/91)

In article <9101020746.AA08202@robobar.Co.Uk> ronald@robobar.Co.Uk (Ronald S H Khoo) writes:
>[ I've crossposted to USENET because I'm hoping someone has an answer to
>  a question regarding the SVR3 vi in general ]

I also posted me original question here, it just didn't propagate to you as
quickly as the mailing list.

>In article <9101012058.AA04469@jpr.com> on the SCO mailing list
>jpr@jpr.com wrote:
>> This is a mapping which I used daily in SCO Xenix to compose replies to
>> CompuServe messages.
>> 
>> map  #1  ?#: [0-9][0-9].* S[0-9][0-9]*/?Wyt N<<Ore^[pmao/post unf^[mbO
>> 
>> It fails in SCO Unix. Does anyone know what they've changed in vi, besides
>> using terminfo instead of termcap?

>Regular expressions in SCO Unix vi seem to be severely broken, I *think*
>it's closure of a character class that does it.  "ver" on SCO Unix says
>SVR3.1, does anyone know if the base port for that has such problems?

The mailing list has this response:
>From: Eli Liang <uupsi!sco.COM!elil>
>Date: Wed, 2 Jan 91 2:00:15 PST
>Message-Id:  <9101020200.aa12864@scoville.sco.COM>

>This is the result of a small bug that was introduced into vi when it was
>internationalized.  I fixed it for SCO UNIX 3.2v2.  You may want to consider
>upgrading your OS if this is a problem for you.

Sounds good but it seems to me I already have that version. Running
"uname -v -r" shows:
	3.2 2

And running "what /usr/bin/vi" shows:
/usr/bin/vi:
	 printf.c:2.2 6/5/79
	 SCO UNIX 3.2V2 OS 09 Jun 90
Is there a later version of vi?

>Anyway, personally, I gave up with the SCO Unix vi and use the SCO
>Xenix vi instead.  Doing that does pose problems, like % substitution
>doesn't work from the :! mode (top bit gets set), but that's a lot
>less hassle than broken regular expressions.

That's what I'm doing too. But that phenomenon is not consistent. As user
"jpr", it happens when I'm a given directory but not when "root" tries vi
in that directory. It doesn't happen all the time.


 Jean-Pierre Radley	    NYC Public Unix	jpr@jpr.com	CIS: 72160,1341

allbery@NCoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery KB8JRR) (01/04/91)

As quoted from <9101020746.AA08202@robobar.Co.Uk> by ronald@robobar.Co.Uk (Ronald S H Khoo):
+---------------
| > map  #1  ?#: [0-9][0-9].* S[0-9][0-9]*/?Wyt N<<Ore^[pmao/post unf^[mbO
| > 
| > It fails in SCO Unix. Does anyone know what they've changed in vi, besides
| > using terminfo instead of termcap?
| 
| Regular expressions in SCO Unix vi seem to be severely broken, I *think*
| it's closure of a character class that does it.  "ver" on SCO Unix says
| SVR3.1, does anyone know if the base port for that has such problems?
| 
| 	$ cat /dev/icbm > AT&T.
+---------------

I beg your pardon?  The SVR3.1 at work has "vi", and it does *not* have any
regexp bugs --- I've had to use it often enough that I would most definitely
have crashed into them by now.  (I prefer Emacs, but I can't install it on
every machine I work on --- client sites, for example.)

In any case, don't be so quick to nail AT&T to the cross for something that
showed up in an SCO product.  It might have been AT&T, or SCO, or SCO might
have gotten it from someone else (did Interactive have anything to do with the
initial 386 SVR3.1 port?).

I *do* have to wonder why a "3.2" Unix comes with a 3.1 vi, though....

++Brandon
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