Shell Programming and Scripting

Dear Guru's

I'm using Putty and want to edit a file. I know we generally use vi editor to do it. As I'm not good in using vi editor, I want to convert the vi into something like text pad. Is there any option in Putty to do the same ? Thanks for your response.


Srini

You appear to be confused on what putty is and where the vi editor runs.
Putty is a client to connect to remote servers.
vi is the default editor that might be running in the remote server.
You can install any editor available for the server, and configure that server to have that editor as the default, but you would have to do it for each server you want to connect to it.

Dear Aia,
Thanks for you response. May be I'm mistaken. All I want to ask is...is there an easy way to write code without using vi editor?

Thanks,

Mayhap you are mistaking Aia. There is a whole range of editors (and more) available for *nix systems that you may use (maybe have to install upfront) on your *nix system.
Unless you copy (ftp?) the files over and edit on your windows machine.

Yes, there are no lack of choices for editors, suitable for programming, in the Linux/Unix world. However, if you are coding in a remote node connected via a putty session, the editor runs in the machine that you are connected, and since it is a terminal session, without a GUI (Graphical User Interface), the editor must be one that doesn't require a pretty graphic. This is one of the reasons that vi/vim is ubiquitous. Another popular editor is emacs, but this one has its learning curve as well. Nano is a popular choice that is very easy to use. But remember, it must be installed in the remote machine if not there already.

If you only want to edit files in a remote Unix/Linux server, then another option is to use an editor in your local (Windows) machine that opens up an ftp or ssh connection to the remote server.
EditPlus and UltraEdit have this capability right in their top level menu. Notepad++ has a plugin for this. Not sure about TextPad.
- Once connected, it shows the directory tree on one side.
- When you double-click on a file, it downloads the file and opens it up for editing in your GUI editor.
- Upon saving the file after editing, it uploads and saves the file back to the remote server.

Of course, using this method you won't be able to run Unix/Linux commands or run shell scripts on the remote server.
This method works well for guys who are very comfortable with Windows GUI editors and who interact with Unix/Linux boxes **only** to view and edit files.

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The suggestion above is an expansion of the last statement in RudiC's post. I notice that he had suggested a similar approach already.

If you edit on windows and use the files on *nix, make sure there's NO DOS style line terminators (<CR>, \r, 0x0D)!