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From: maart@cs.vu.nl (Maarten Litmaath)
Newsgroups: comp.editors,comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Centering lines in vi
Message-ID: <3221@solo1.cs.vu.nl>
Date: 11 Sep 89 23:40:46 GMT
References: <2283@umbc3.UMBC.EDU>
Organization: V.U. Informatica, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Lines: 44

rostamia@umbc3.UMBC.EDU (Rouben Rostamian) writes:
\Does anyone know a combination of commands that will center a given line 
\(or better yet, a range of lines) in vi?  

I think you're better off filtering the range through some nroff shell script.
Example (to set indentation and linelength):
----------8<----------8<----------8<----------8<----------8<----------
#!/bin/sh

# usage: fill [indent] [linelength]
# author: Hans-Juergen Ehling (eh@astbe.uucp)

indent=${1-0}
llength=${2-72}

tmp=/tmp/format.$$
umask 077

/bin/rm -f $tmp
exec 3>&1 > $tmp 4< $tmp
/bin/rm -f $tmp

echo ".hy 0
.ll $llength
.in $indent"

tr -s ' ' ' ' # To squeeze blanks

nroff <&4 >&3
----------8<----------8<----------8<----------8<----------8<----------
Usage:
	!}fill 3 78

to reformat up to the end of the paragraph.

\A (perhaps) related question:
\Is there a command that returns the current column position of the cursor 
\in vi?

I guess not. :-(
Maybe some disgusting macro...
-- 
C, the programming language that's the same |Maarten Litmaath @ VU Amsterdam:
         in all reference frames.           |maart@cs.vu.nl, mcvax!botter!maart