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From: wyle@inf.ethz.ch (Mitchell Wyle)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: vi for power users
Message-ID: <17723@neptune.inf.ethz.ch>
Date: 10 Dec 90 14:00:15 GMT
References: <109909@convex.convex.com> <1990Dec08.200418.6663@chinet.chi.il.us> <110093@convex.convex.com> <1990Dec10.051430.12025@chinet.chi.il.us>
Sender: news@neptune.inf.ethz.ch
Reply-To: wyle@inf.ethz.ch (Mitchell Wyle)
Organization: Departement Informatik, ETH, Zurich
Lines: 133

In <1990Dec10.051430.12025@chinet.chi.il.us> 
les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) clarifies:


>Actually, I do have fmt on at least one of the machines, but I routinely
>log into and edit files on many machine where I don't maintain the
>programs.  Some of them don't even have compilers.  I don't mind carting
>my .profile and perhaps an .exrc around, but having to install new programs
>just to reformat a paragraph is a bit much.

and the fmt from uunet has BSD-isms in it, making it hard to port.  Face it,
Tom.  If you EDIT prose, you need a fmt function in your text editor.  The
lisp and magic stuff are not so important, especially if you don't edit
lisp! But the lack of fmt is a glaring hole in vi.

>>>2) How do you manipulate arbitrary rectangles of text (copy/delete/move)?
>
>>No, that's not built-in to the program. What's the application?  If you
>>just want to swap or delete fields or columns around on the same lines,
>>you could easily do it from within vi itself.  (Although it might be more
>>conveniently expressed using a more general-purpose tool.)  Just because
>>everything is built-in to a PC program doesn't mean you should do it that
>>way in UNIX.
>
>If you don't build it in, you are going to have a heck of a time figuring
>out the piece you want to manipulate in the other tool.
>
>>The very *VERY* few times I've wanted to do something not on
>>the same line, it takes me maybe 15 seconds of programming in sed, cut,
>>awk, or perl does the trick.  Show me the kind of problem you mean.
>
>It's a situation you would see in secretarial work more than programming.
>You have something typed in with nice alligned columns and at the last
>minute you decide to move one of the columns.  Happens all the time.
>In programming, the only time you would see something like this would
>be in a list that initializes an array of structs, if you had gone
>to the trouble of visually alligning the elements in the first place.
>In practice, I don't need this a lot myself but it is a very good reason
>not to recommend vi for secretarial use.

Tables:

1.  Don't use vi to do tables; use sc(1).

2.  If you have violated rule 1, you must resort to the regular-expression
    stuff in the right-hand-side of a substitute (:s) command, or else bang
    in the sed or awk script.

In this case, given something like:

1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10
12 113 18 1012 11
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10
12 113 18 1012 11
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10
12 113 18 1012 11
a b c d e f g
12 113 18 1012 11
a b c d e f g
6 7 8 9 10
12 113 18 1012 11
a b c d e f g

To get the columns in a different order, you could type a vi command like:

!}awk '{print $3 " " $2 " " $1 " " $4 " " $5}'

3 2 1 4 5
8 7 6 9 10
18 113 12 1012 11
3 2 1 4 5
8 7 6 9 10
18 113 12 1012 11
3 2 1 4 5
8 7 6 9 10
3 2 1 4 5
8 7 6 9 10
18 113 12 1012 11
c b a d e
18 113 12 1012 11
c b a d e
8 7 6 9 10
18 113 12 1012 11
c b a d e

You can make the table look nicer with the vi command: !}halign r r r r r

which gives us:

 3   2  1    4  5
 8   7  6    9 10
18 113 12 1012 11
 3   2  1    4  5
 8   7  6    9 10
18 113 12 1012 11
 3   2  1    4  5
 8   7  6    9 10
 3   2  1    4  5
 8   7  6    9 10
18 113 12 1012 11
 c   b  a    d  e
18 113 12 1012 11
 c   b  a    d  e
 8   7  6    9 10
18 113 12 1012 11
 c   b  a    d  e

and don't forget !}sort


 3   2  1    4  5
 3   2  1    4  5
 3   2  1    4  5
 3   2  1    4  5
 8   7  6    9 10
 8   7  6    9 10
 8   7  6    9 10
 8   7  6    9 10
 8   7  6    9 10
 c   b  a    d  e
 c   b  a    d  e
18 113 12 1012 11
18 113 12 1012 11
18 113 12 1012 11
18 113 12 1012 11
18 113 12 1012 11

fun, eh?