Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcvax!kth!sunic!maxim!prc
From: prc@erbe.se (Robert Claeson)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: Can "vi" handle chars above 127 ASCII?
Summary: System V Release 3's vi can handle 8-bit characters, but...
Message-ID: <741@maxim.erbe.se>
Date: 22 Jun 89 07:24:35 GMT
References: <18473@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu>
Reply-To: rclaeson@erbe.se (Robert Claeson)
Organization: Hall of Fame
Lines: 25

In article <18473@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu> dcarson@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu (David  Carson) writes:

>I will have to admit that I use "vi" and take my chances on the 
>flames that will result.  Does anyone know how to set up "vi"
>so that it can handle a file that contains chars with the 8th bit 
>set as an ASCII file.  (By default, "vi" calls
>this a non-ASCII file, and therefore it cannot be edited.)

The machine I'm writing this on, an Encore Multimax running UMAX V (System V
Release 3.1) has a vi that can handle 8-bit characters. Whenever it encounters
an 8-bit character in "type-in" mode, it is printed as an octal number like
in the C programming language (ie, "\0253"). When I hit the Escape key to go
out of insert (or whatever) mode, or press Return while in insert mode, the
line is rewritten to show the true characters (ie, u-umlaut instead of the
octal variety). As far as I know, this is the way that vi works on all SVR3.1
systems.

As for your Sun, I don't think there's much you can do except for switching
to some other editor (or wait for SVR4 to appear on it). I currently use
MicroEmacs 3.9e, with the "strip-the-eight-bit" mask removed from the keyboard
input function. Works like a charm with the ISO 8859/1 8-bit character set.

-- 
          Robert Claeson      E-mail: rclaeson@erbe.se
	  ERBE DATA AB