UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

Sorry, crosspost. I tried vi mode too, which mashed it all on one big line. I'm building a newer ksh(2009 release, as opposed to the 2007 I had before) and we'll see if that's got the multi line feature.

[edit] Nope. Either I'm missing an important option, or that's very version-specific, very OS-specific, or both.

Correct, but that big line has embedded new-lines, not semi-colons so if it is edited in the real vi (v command), it is left unchanged. Bash doesn't provides this feature.

That's just nitpicking, then. They're both equally ugly, and bash's "modification" doesn't change it in any way that actually matters.

You are missing my "v" command comment. If I edit with vi a previous multi-line command, its formatting is preserved with ksh but not with bash. That might be nitpicking for someone unused to multi-lines editing but definitely not to me as I'm doing this all the times.

Yes, it is a nitpick, because you're not pointing out a broken or missing feature: You're just complaining that it's not ksh. I do multi-line editing quite frequently. BASH substitutes semicolons where appropriate, and breaks across lines -- real lines, not ^J -- otherwise. You can also disable the semicolon substitution with "shopt -s lithist" if you want.

Thanks for the lithist options that I was definitely missing, and please don't attribute to nitpicking what can be explained by ignorance ...

I guess I'm not familiar enough with vi-mode editing to understand why the semicolons matter. Sorry.