Weird behavior of Vi


 
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# 1  
Old 04-27-2012
Weird behavior of Vi

Hi there,

I am a bit puzzled by a weird behavior of Vi. I very simply would like to add increased numbers in some files. Since I have many thousands entries per file and many files, I would like to macro it in vi.

To do this, I enter the first number ("0001") on the first line and then yank it, insert it at the right place one line below, increment it and return to starting position on the line.
Code:
qa
4y<right arrow>
<down arrow>
<left arrow>
p
[Ctrl + a]
4<left arrow>

And it works Smilie ... by batches of either 7 lines, 70 lines or 700 lines Smilie . Because after each number "7", the auto-increase jumps to the next X0, X00 or X000!? Smilie
Examples :
... 0006 0007 0010 0011 ...
... 0036 0037 0040 0041 ...
... 0076 0077 0100 0101 ...
... 0156 0157 0160 0161 ...
... 0776 0777 1000 1001 ..., etc

It doesn't make any sense and I really very much don't understand.... Does anybody know what's going on ? Smilie

cheers!
J

[edit: typo]

Last edited by hypsis; 04-27-2012 at 05:01 PM..
# 2  
Old 04-27-2012
Octal numbers count from 0...7, 10
This User Gave Thanks to jim mcnamara For This Post:
# 3  
Old 04-27-2012
While we're at it - try the nl command
# 4  
Old 04-27-2012
ok, I've checked numbering format. I didn't know decimal weren't the default, nor that 'octal numbers' existed for that matter. Even if I know that vi isn't famed for its user-friendliness, I have to say, I'm impressed.

I checked also the nl command. I cannot use it here - it's a very simplified version of what I intend to do - but I'll keep it in mind.

Many thanks
# 5  
Old 04-28-2012
And now for a trip in the wayback machine.... Regarding the user-friendliness of vi, if you put yourself back in the days when it was written, it was actually very user-friendly, just in different terms then what that means today.

Back in the 70's remote terminals connected to UNIX boxes via phone lines at maybe 300 baud. Can you imagine today writing a program where you type a command, have to wait a sec or 2 to the results, repeat!?

The developers of vi (Bill Joy, etc) made each keystroke count, which meant very short, cryptic commands (that you just plain had to memorize) sure did a lot. You had to minimize that wait time and get the most bang for the keystroke. vi is super-powerful but you just have to learn all those cryptic commands to really be effecient. Why just keep pressing 'l' (that's an ell) to go right when you can press w for word and move faster that direction? Or even better f for find followed by the letter you need to move to? Much quicker once you memorized the movement commands and that is just scratching the surface.

Did you ever wonder why Bill Joy made the left, up, down, right keys h, j, k, l? The first version of vi was developed on the Lear-Siegler ADM-3A, the first terminal with addressable cursor capability which allowed positioning of the cursor at an x,y location on the screen. Before that, text scrolled up just like paper on the teletype machines which preceded the crt tube terminals (still called tty's, short for teletype). Guess which keys had the arrows on them since there were no separate arrow keys yet?

Image Photo from http://www.tentacle.franken.de/adm3a/

And the Tilda (~) was on the "home" button too, which I assume is where we got the ~ as a shortcut for your home directory.

First the curses library was written in C to support the addressable cursor capability, and right after one of the first real games (and still my favorite), Rogue, was developed to test it they wrote the front end to the ex editor, vi (for visual interface).

Here's a great cheat sheet for vi commands: Vi Cheat Sheet There are others out there too.

Anyway, I hope this historical trip down memory lane makes you appreciate your favorite editor even more when put in the context of the era.

Gary

Last edited by gary_w; 05-02-2012 at 11:54 AM.. Reason: fixed typos
This User Gave Thanks to gary_w For This Post:
 
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