Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!mcsun!hp4nl!sci.kun.nl!cs.kun.nl!hansm
From: hansm@cs.kun.nl (Hans Mulder)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: SunOS 4.1 & vi
Keywords: BSD SYSV vi tabs
Message-ID: <2141@wn1.sci.kun.nl>
Date: 11 Sep 90 10:18:35 GMT
References: <6246@vanuata.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Sender: root@sci.kun.nl
Distribution: comp
Organization: University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Lines: 36

In article <6246@vanuata.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> sinclair@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Duncan Sinclair) writes:
>We've just upgraded to SunOs 4.1.
>
>Two quick questions for the vi hackers out there:
>
>1) What is the difference between the (sys 5) SunOS 4.1 vi and
>   the old (bsd) SunOS 4.0.x vi?   (except "showmode")

The one that stung me immediately was that the sys5 version looks at the
environment variable TERMINFO, while the BSD version looks at TERMCAP.

SunOS 4.1 comes with a termcap-to-terminfo converter, but you definitely
notice that you have to invoke it before being able to use vi to edit
your private termcap file to suit the tastes of the converter.

Since you are asking hacker's advice, I suppose you don't want to hear
about "novice" mode.

There must be other differences lurking somewhere.


>2) Is there any way to persuade vi not to use tabs to indent?

Well, you could :set tabstop=1234.  This puts the first tabstop in
column 1234 and since the maximum line length is 1024, you can't get
in column 1234 and vi will never generate a tab.  On the other hand,
vi will get mad if it finds a tab in your file.

Me?  I filter my file through expand every so often.  But I know that
one day I'll forget it and troff will munge my output and I won't
notice until the xerox shop delivers 1000 copies of the disaster....


Happy hacking,

Hans Mulder	hansm@cs.kun.nl