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From: jewett@hpl-opus.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: vi on system v, sed on all unixs
Message-ID: <1990002@hpl-opus.HP.COM>
Date: Sat, 4-Apr-87 14:56:04 EST
Article-I.D.: hpl-opus.1990002
Posted: Sat Apr  4 14:56:04 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 8-Apr-87 23:46:18 EST
References: <356@gssc.UUCP>
Organization: HP Labs, Instrument Tech. Dept.
Lines: 17

> vi on system 5 is severely limited (in my opinion) by limiting the size of
> files that can be edited.

    Depends on the Sys V implementation and system parameters.  I find I can
    "octed spice" on my HPUX (~SYS V) system.

    octed translates a binary file to ascii codes, then calls $EDITOR (vi),
    then translates back.  It's similar to "bed" and "bpatch", which have been
    posted to the net.  For spice (a circuit simulator) the ascii
    intermediate file is 4170896 bytes (4x the binary).  It takes 5.5 minutes
    real, 2.5 minutes CPU, for the whole process on a 68020-based system.

    bpatch, posted by Steven List, has the advantage that it only translates
    a 256 byte page of the binary at a time.  It takes less than a minute to
    search for and change "iob", which is near the end of the file.  The
    disadvantage is that it has its own editing commands -- you don't get to
    use your own editor.