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From: gast@lanai.cs.ucla.edu (David Gast)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: Vi bashing
Keywords: holy mackerel
Message-ID: <22269@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 26 Mar 89 03:20:21 GMT
References: <587@alice.marlow.uucp> <4048@ttidca.TTI.COM> <960@myrias.UUCP> <24@hcr.UUCP> <4129@ttidca.TTI.COM>
Sender: news@CS.UCLA.EDU
Reply-To: gast@cs.ucla.edu (David Gast)
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Lines: 53

In article <4129@ttidca.TTI.COM> kevin@ttidcb.tti.com (Kevin Carothers) writes:
>In article 601 <24@hcr.UUCP>
>From: stacey@hcr.UUCP (Stacey Campbell)
>
>There are many reasons why one needs to count lines 
>between marks for other than deleting [ie; the ">>", "<<", "!}", etc.]. 
>What I presented was the *ONLY* way I know of to "C O U N T    L I N E S 
>without having to count. How many times do I have to repeat myself!

I guess you will have to repeat yourself, until you read what others write
and you learn another way.  Turn your flame gun off, read and learn!

You have still missed the point.  You do not need to count the lines in 
these cases.  Just use the objects.  Suppose you want to indent all lines
up to (not including) the line beginning with /pattern.  Then you type:
>/^pattern<cr>.  (In most cases, you probably will not need the ^, but it
is there in case it is necessary).  If you want to include the line with
pattern, then you type: >/attern<cr> (assuming that attern is only in that
one line; if you get bad results, you undo and choose a different
pattern).  Please note, it is not necessary to count lines.  You do not
have to type: 27>> You could also use the substitute command and you
would not have to count lines then either, but the above way is less
typing.

Your other example ``!}'' makes no sense at all.  This command goes from the
current position to the end of paragraph.  Why do you need to know the
number of lines to use this command?  If you want to sort all the lines
until the pattern, you can type: !/pattern<cr>sort<cr>.  The same rule about
pattern as above applies.  That is, if the pattern starts a line, then
that line is not included, otherwise it is.

These methods are clearly faster than yours.

>>>'a,'bw! wc -l

1) You do not have to mark a, then go to b and mark it.
2) You do not have to fork a shell to count lines.
3) Even after you have done the above, you still have not done the real
   command you want to do (delete, change, yank, indent, etc).

I am not saying that there cannot be some reason why you have to count
lines, but I have not seen you provide one yet.  Lots of alternatives
have been suggested including ``make an estimate, and undo it if it is
wrong.''

Before flaming again, read the other messages and LEARN that you do NOT
HAVE TO COUNT.  If you want to count when that is not necessary, feel
free, but do not keep telling the net that it is necessary to count.  It
is not.

David Gast
gast@cs.ucla.edu
{uunet,ucbvax,rutgers}!{ucla-cs,cs.ucla.edu}!gast