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From: dbar@csuchico.edu (David Barrett)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: destructive backspace on vi
Message-ID: <1990Aug30.224234.19582@ecst.csuchico.edu>
Date: 30 Aug 90 22:42:34 GMT
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Reply-To: dbar@csuchico.edu (David Barrett)
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Organization: California State University, Chico
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When I use a screen editor, I like a "destructive backspace"
(you back up and the character under the cursor disappears).
Previous versions of vi that I have used (on ATT for example) 
have had this feature, I think.  But I am now using HP Version 
64.22.1.1 of vi on HP-UX 7.0 OS (this is response to ":ve"
command), where backspace apparently is nondestructive and 
can't be altered by ordinary users.

The man page for vi says erase = ^H, and ^H "returns the cursor to 
the last input character without erasing it".  That, I presume,
is final.  The system administrator here thinks there may be 
no solution to this but to find the pertinent line in vi source code,  
change it, and recompile.  Even if it is legal to revise source
code, it is hardly practical, I gather.  (i.e. Why make a change 
like that just to satisfy just one user? ) 

All the vi literature I have read says that the erase function 
can be linked to the key of your choice with the command "stty 
erase DEL", where the DEL is actually <CNTL> v DEL.  I do this
on the HP-UX system and I get a destructive backspace for commands
from the login shell mapped to the key of my choice.  Likewise for 
the ex editor.  But in vi, d.b.s. is against the rules.  Why is
this?  If d.b.s. is a good thing at the command level, and a good
thing in a line editor, why should it be a bad thing in a screen
editor? 

Is there some way to customize the editor for d.b.s. that I have 
not thought of?  Or does Confucius say "forget it"?

(Note:  I am new to UseNet.  I just read the info for new users.
I would like a reply in my mailbox, as shown above, and I'd be
glad to summarize these replies in a week or so, or whenever answers
stop coming in.  I could not find a more appropriate newsgroup than
comp.text.  "comp.editors" was mentioned to me, but I didn't find it
listed in new users' information.  I welcome criticism & suggestions.)