[comp.sys.next] Suspending vi

ali@polya.Stanford.EDU (Ali T. Ozer) (11/18/89)

In article <3574@hydra.gatech.EDU> gil@daffy.gatech.edu (Gil Neiger) writes:
>I am running NeXT 1.0 and it seems to me that when I suspend vi
>(via csh's ^Z, for example), vi insists upon first saving the
>file being edited (if it has been changed).  

vi on my machine doesn't do that; do you have some option set, maybe?
(I'm not familiar with vi so I don't know what would cause this;
however, it doesn't seem to be the default behavior.)

Ali

sahayman@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Steve Hayman) (11/18/89)

>(I'm not familiar with vi so I don't know what would cause this;
>however, it doesn't seem to be the default behavior.)

This behaviour of vi [automatically writing out files when you ^Z]
is called "autowrite", and is set with ":set autowrite" or ":set aw".

It shouldn't be anybody's default; check your EXINIT variable or .exrc
file.  You can turn it off with ":set noaw", which is handy if you're
trying to suspend a vi session and the file can't be written.

boyle@altair.mcs.anl.gov (11/19/89)

/* Written 12:22 pm  Nov 17, 1989 by gil@daffy.gatech.edu in altair:comp.sys.next */
/* ---------- "Suspending vi" ---------- */
I am running NeXT 1.0 and it seems to me that when I suspend vi
(via csh's ^Z, for example), vi insists upon first saving the
file being edited (if it has been changed).  [...] This
problem is especially troublesome if you happen to be editing
a file that you own but which you cannot write.  You cannot
suspend the editor, go to the shell, change the mode of the
file, resume and save. [...] 

				- Gil Neiger
				gil@daffy.gatech.edu
/* End of text from altair:comp.sys.next */

Presumably, besides doing ":set noautowrite", you could use ":w <file name>"
to write to some other file.  Or, you could use ":shell" to get a shell
within vi from which you could change the permissions.

Jim Boyle