Solaris

I have a file, which contains many string values to be used for further use.

The script does the following operations if the user wants to change any/all of the values:

1. Open that file using vi.
2. Change the respective values to desired value.
3. if(return status of vi != 1)
save the file & proceed ahead.
else
exit.

due to this vi problem, the flow goes to the 'else' part & exits without saving the file.

can anybody suggest something.

Well, it sounds more appropriate to use sed, grep, awk or PERL.

Does vi exiting 1 tell you something about file validity?
Something about run time errors?

If fields were missing, invalid, out of place or files were not writable, those are easy to check.

Solaris' crontab command does something similar, when you call it with the -e switch to edit your crontab.

Code:

EDITOR=/usr/bin/vi crontab -e

starts the Solaris vi with a temporary copy of your crontab file. After vi ends, the exit status is checked. If it is not 0, then the crontab command says

Code:

     The editor indicates that an error occurred while you were
     editing the crontab data - usually a minor typing error.

     Edit again, to ensure crontab information is intact (y/n)?
     ('n' will discard edits.)

If the user answers "yes", the editor is started again with the same temporary copy of the crontab file. If the answer is "no", the temporary copy is discarded.

Maybe you could implement something similar in your script.