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From: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: : wq (Re: One user's editor wish list)
Message-ID: <1991Mar29.162034.12996@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 29 Mar 91 16:20:34 GMT
Article-I.D.: chinet.1991Mar29.162034.12996
References: <1991Mar25.191821.11019@scrumpy@.bnr.ca> <2900@wn1.sci.kun.nl> <1991Mar28.155305.8204@vpnet.chi.il.us>
Organization: Chinet - Chicago Public Access UNIX
Lines: 25

In article <1991Mar28.155305.8204@vpnet.chi.il.us> dattier@vpnet.chi.il.us (David W. Tamkin) writes:

>That alone would be reason to use :wq, except that in the versions of vi I've
>used, :wq also skips the write if the [Modified] flag is off; I have to use
>:w and then :q to get around it.  Even setting autowrite and writeany doesn't
>help.  If only vi didn't clear the [Modified] flag when you write to an
>outside file; that's the real problem.

Actually there is an easy work-around for this.  Just remember to do
a :w <enter> before you :w other_file.  That keeps the file consistent
with the modified flag.

[:x]
>| - it gives you a second chance if the write failed

>It does?  I didn't know that.  The only time a write ever failed on me the
>whole system locked up and I lost all my changes anyway, and I wasn't trying
>to quit vi, just to :w to save the changes so far.

It won't fix a system crash of course, but you can recover from things
like not having write permission or file system full errors if you
can save a copy somewhere else.  :wq exits regardless.

Les Mikesell
  les@chinet.chi.il.us