Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!pdn!palan!sherpa!rac
From: rac@sherpa.UUCP (Roger Cornelius)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: history behind <count>command<count>movement behavior in vi
Message-ID: <391@sherpa.UUCP>
Date: 13 Nov 90 00:59:47 GMT
Organization: Personal System Computing,  St. Petersburg, FL
Lines: 17

Something I've wondered about vi is the purpose behind its behavior when
a command of the following form is given:

For commands followed by a movement, e.g.  `cw', `d}', etc., if both
the command and the movement are preceded by a count, then the command
affects count*count objects.  If the command `5d5d' is given, then 25
lines are deleted.  `3y6y' yanks 18 lines and `2c3w' changes 6 words.

I've never seen this mentioned in any documentation I've read - Is it
just a side affect of parsing the command and movements separately, or
maybe it's there to get around some internal limit in vi?

--
Roger A. Cornelius          rac@sherpa.UUCP         uunet!sherpa!rac