Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!uunet!tellab5!vpnet!dattier
From: dattier@vpnet.chi.il.us (David W. Tamkin)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: vi mapping difficulty
Message-ID: <1991Mar08.205940.11108@vpnet.chi.il.us>
Date: 8 Mar 91 20:59:40 GMT
Organization: VPnet Public Access Unix, Villa Park, Illinois  60181-2206
Lines: 36

I'm having a problem with a key mapping in vi.  If anyone can help, I'd
surely appreciate it.

I want to clear out any lines that don't have text on them.  The purpose is
to separate paragraphs in quoted text.

So I have this in my .exrc:

map ^X :v/[0-9A-Za-z]/s/.*//^M

where ^X and ^M are ctrl-X and CR.  The ^X doesn't need a ^V to be entered,
but with or without it, or mapped to a printing character, the results are
the same.

Now, on some systems I call the mapping works fine.  On all of them, if I
type the command in, it works.  But on other systems (including those I call
most), if I try to use a mapping and call it by rebound key, these are the
effects:

If I've just read the file into the buffer and made no changes yet, it works.
Otherwise, one or two occurrences of the pattern get replaced and the
operation stops with "Can't undo in global" -- so who asked for an undo?

It's not a matter of the "modified" flag, because if I do :w or :w! to write
the buffer out and remove the flag, the operation (if called from a rebound
key) still aborts with "Can't undo in global."  If I :w and then :e %, it
will work if I use it before making any more changes.

Short of expecting the system administrators to install new versions of vi,
is there any way I can change the mapping to make it function?  Binding
:g/^[^0-9A-Za-z]*$/s///^M to a key acts the same way.

David Tamkin  PO Box 7002  Des Plaines IL  60018-7002  dattier@vpnet.chi.il.us
GEnie:D.W.TAMKIN  CIS:73720,1570  MCIMail:426-1818  708 518 6769  312 693 0591

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