Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!pacbell.com!pacbell!att!cbnews!djz From: djz@cbnews.att.com (Danny Zerkel) Newsgroups: comp.bugs.sys5 Subject: Re: Obscure Vi bug? Message-ID: <1990Aug3.173550.25420@cbnews.att.com> Date: 3 Aug 90 17:35:50 GMT References: <11626@ingr.com> <1990Aug2.211449.24360@math-cs.kent.edu> Distribution: na Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 17 In article <1990Aug2.211449.24360@math-cs.kent.edu> jstuart@kentvax.kent.edu (Jeff Stuart) writes: >We have a problem here also with vi that when you edit a file and that >file contains an ei: possibly followed by some text and then another : >vi gives an error message. This happened on two machines, 1) Plexus >P/75 running System V.2, and 2) Zilog Z80 running System V.2. The error >message that we get on the zilog is bad register command and on the >plexus it is something totally different. Has anyone seen this? > This problem shows up in SVR2. The code in ex (and vi) looks for 'e' or 'v' followed by 'x' or 'i' followed by ':' near the beginning or end of the file. It takes the rest of the line as a command line. We had a user 'pei' in the passwd file near the end. So everytime we vi'ed the passwd file, we'd get a stupid message. Danny J. Zerkel AT&T Bell Labs Columbus, OH (No, really! I can't believe it either!!)