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From: tcjones@watdragon.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: e - the friendly interface to vi. (again)
Message-ID: <3933@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Date: Mon, 26-Oct-87 12:02:19 EST
Article-I.D.: watdrago.3933
Posted: Mon Oct 26 12:02:19 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 28-Oct-87 22:16:20 EST
Reply-To: tcjones@watdragon.UUCP (Crocodile Dundee)
Distribution: world
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 80


Thanks to Simon Brown for the sysV port. I think though that some of the other
things that were done to the e.c posting he made were undesirable.


		>o Ported to System V.


Undoubtedly a good thing.


		>o Puts history in the correct file even if you try to edit
	  	>files not in the current directory.


This (to me) is wrong. If you are in directory "a" and you e a file in
directory "b", then it should go into the history in directory "a", since there
is some reasonable probability that you will want to e it again from directory
"a".  That (to me) is the whole point of having a directory based history
mechanism.


		>o "e -" and "e ." use the same numbering scheme.


This is a matter of taste. I wrote it so that what you saw on doing an "e ."
would correspond to what you would get by doing an "e -n" (for some n in the 
"e ." output). 

"e -" is a completely different thing and is numbered from 1 upwards because 
it seemed nicer that way. I will probably change this for next time.


		>o Multiple file-entries in history-files no longer occur.


But they are meant to! If I type "e fred joe harry" then I want "fred joe
harry" to appear on the same line in the .e file so that the next time I type
"e" I will get the three files again.

This has also removed the ability to say "e +10 fred" and have the "+10"
remembered, as it will get stripped. So the next time you do an "e" you 
get put back at the first line of fred, not the tenth.


		>o Uses $EDITOR instead of always using "vi".


This is perhaps not a good idea, since it is possible that people will have
EDITOR defined for other programs and it will be defined as "e" - infinite loop
to follow. Maybe a variable called EEDITOR should be used? In which case,
perhaps VIPATH should be known as EPATH?

******

Anyway. This was certainly not meant to be unappreciative. Thanks to those who
have helped out with portability and especially to Phil Oldiges for the man
page.


I think I will incorporate 

	the sysV changes, 
	an EEDITOR variable, 
	change VIPATH to EPATH, (while still allowing VIPATH)
	make the numbering on "e -" the same as on "e ." and 
	include a man page 
	
for the next time around. 
Is anyone interested in this or have we all had enough of e?


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Terry Jones, Department Of Computer Science, University Of Waterloo
			 Waterloo Ontario Canada N2L 3G1

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