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From: gast@lanai.cs.ucla.edu (David Gast)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: :":!cc %" in vi.
Message-ID: <28529@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 26 Oct 89 23:59:24 GMT
References: <276@leo.UUCP> <2738@hydra.gatech.EDU>
Sender: news@CS.UCLA.EDU
Reply-To: gast@lanai.UUCP (David Gast)
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Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Lines: 36

In article <2738@hydra.gatech.EDU> robert@shangri-la.gatech.edu (Robert Viduya) writes:
>> 
>> Could anyone lights me up with this simple problem.
>> While i was VIing a file, named foo.c, i tried to do:
>> 	:!cc % 
>> i got the following error:
>> 	"ld crt0.o fatal: Can't open file foo.c for input"

>For some internal
>reason, when vi substitutes the "%", it puts the current file name in with all
>the characters having their high-bit set.  You can't tell the difference on your
>screen since that high-bit is used as a parity bit on serial lines and gets
>filtered out, but when vi calls the shell to execute the command those bits
>are in there and as a result, the compiler can't find the file.  System V allows
>you to have full 8-bit character file names and "foo.c" with the high-bit clear
>is an entirely different name from "foo.c" with the high-bit set.
>
>The solution to the problem is to fix vi.  If you don't have source and can't
>do that, the next best solution is to fix your shell to filter out high-bits
>(which prevents you from taking advantage of that feature).

If you don't have source to vi or the shell or you just don't want to start
hacking:

1) Use tr to clear the 8th bit.  (I presume that Sys V can do this; I don't
   know for sure.)
2) Write a trival C program to clear the eighth bit.

3) Write a trivial shell program--call it ccc.  Invoke it as :!ccc %.
   ccc passes its arguments through tr (from above) and then calls
   cc with the arguments you really want.  Note: You don't filter the file
   through tr, you filter the arguments. 

David Gast
gast@cs.ucla.edu
{uunet,ucbvax,rutgers}!{ucla-cs,cs.ucla.edu}!gast