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From: ned@ghostwheel.UUCP (Ned Nowotny)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.att,comp.editors
Subject: Re: vi editor problem on UNIX-pc
Message-ID: <113@ghostwheel.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 17-Nov-87 11:14:01 EST
Article-I.D.: ghostwhe.113
Posted: Tue Nov 17 11:14:01 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Nov-87 19:48:00 EST
References: <50@cjsa.UUCP>
Reply-To: ned@ghostwheel.aca.mcc.com.UUCP (Ned Nowotny)
Organization: MCC Database Program, Austin, Texas
Lines: 16
Keywords: vi editor unix-pc
Xref: mnetor comp.sys.att:1785 comp.editors:14

In article <50@cjsa.UUCP> jeff@cjsa.UUCP (C. Jeffery Small) writes:
>Occasionally, when I am editing a file with long lines (say 130 cols or more)
>or when I perform a join (J) of two lines to create a long line, vi will get
>very confused and loose track of its screen representation.  The cursor will
>appear in one spot but vi thinks it is in another location or, at other times,
>the long lines will wrap around but the wrapped portion will be mangled in
>mysterious ways.

I have seen this problem, or one very similar to it, on a number of different
systems and versions of UNIX.  Generally, if wrapmargin ("wm") is non-zero, a
join which results in a line of about the lengths you describe will be badly
mangled.  Many of the characters from the "joined" line are lost.  If
wrapmargin is zero, these problems do not seem to occur.  My suspicion is that
this is a fairly widespread vi bug.

Ned Nowotny (ned@ghostwheel.aca.mcc.com.UUCP)