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From: steinbac@hpl-opus.HP.COM (Gunter Steinbach)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: vi: search for or go to a line not of length n
Message-ID: <62420017@hpl-opus.HP.COM>
Date: 25 Sep 90 16:08:12 GMT
References: <lee.654252627@chsun1>
Organization: HP Labs, High Speed Electronics Dept., Palo Alto, CA
Lines: 26

> / hpl-opus:comp.editors / lee@chsun1.uchicago.edu (dwight lee) /
> 1:50 am  Sep 25, 1990 /

> Most uuencoded lines are 61 characters long.  I'd like to be able to search
> for a line that isn't 61 characters long.  Any reasonably automated method
> will do!  Regexps, macros... anything.

Just look for
/...................................................................../

(Make that 61 dots - I didn't count mine.)

> Also, is there a way for a search in vi to be inverted?  ie "search for the
> next line which does not begin with a capital M".  This would also be good for
> checking on mangled uuencoded files.

That one is easy:  
/^[^M]/ 

The first caret anchors you at the front of the line, the caret inside
square brackets inverts character- set search.  You should not have "set
ignorecase" on.

Good luck!

	 Guenter Steinbach		gunter_steinbach@hplabs.hp.com