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From: wtm@bunker.UUCP (Bill McGarry)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: help w/ a vi map
Message-ID: <2207@bunker.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 19-Jun-87 00:23:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: bunker.2207
Posted: Fri Jun 19 00:23:15 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 22-Jun-87 01:21:43 EDT
References: <7881@brl-adm.ARPA>
Reply-To: wtm@bunker.UUCP (Bill McGarry)
Organization: Bunker Ramo, an Olivetti Company, Shelton, CT
Lines: 29

In article <7881@brl-adm.ARPA> groff@gateway.mitre.ORG writes (edited):
>
>
>     I have encountered a puzzling problem w/ setting up a map in vi.
>It began w/ a file I had redirected from 'man printcap'.  This file had
>_^H's thru-out.  I could have simply done :1,$s/_^H//g and gone merrily
>on my way.  (This worked fine.)  I decided to create a map for this function
>by doing :map ^R :1,$s/_^H//g^M  - this worked SORT OF, but NOT as I would have
>expected.  I get the error: "No previous regular expression"
>     

There are two problems here:  First, the "$" should be escaped as
"\$" to avoid any problem with shell variables.  Secondly, control V's
(or your "literal-next" character) must be included in the map itself.
The final map should look like this:
	:map ^R :1,\$s/_^V^V^H//g^M

Note that to get the "^V^V^H" sequence, you must actually type:
	^V^V^V^V^V^H        (That's right -- 5 ^V's and 1 ^H)

Looks weird but it works (I tried it) and it does make sense.  The first
control V allows the next control V to "get through" to vi so that the
control H will not act as a backspace.  Otherwise, the map actually
ends up being:    ":1,///g"


				Bill McGarry

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