UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Just got a new server running Oracle Linux 6 (a derivitive of RHEL, but I'm not sure the version correlation). This is my first hands on with this verision, having worked in the past with OL 5 (as well as some older Solaris, HPUX and AIX).

Connected with putty.

When I'm editing a file in INSERT mode and paste in a several lines I've copied out of some other source (pasting from the Windows clipboard), if the pasted text includes a comment ('#') every line following will be commented and indented - and with the indent increasing on each line -- each following line indented from the previous.

Obvoiously a config issue, but I've never actually tried to do any persistent configuration for vi. After googling a bit, came to no conclusion except that I do not have the commonly reference config files - vimrc, etc.

I'm not the SA and did not actually install the machine, but I do have root access for a while.

I'm open to any pointers. Especially for exactly what to look at to compare this config to one of my other machines that behave in what I would consider a 'normal' fashion.

Generally, vi is configured by $HOME/.exrc (vi stands for visual ex, where the : part is ex). Steal a good one or lean out some of the stuff in yours. You can see options with ":se" which is akin to shell comand 'set -o', and displays if not given anything to set/unset. If your vi is vim, $HOME/..vimrc can hide $HOME/..exrc, so be careful.

The UNIX School: What is .exrc file for?
[Chapter 7] Advanced Editing

if vim:
A Good Vimrc

Using:

Code:

:set noautoindent

before you paste the text into your file will turn off automatic indentation. You probably don't want to always set noautoindent when you're manually editing new code, but you do want to turn it off before pasting in text that contains indented lines.

To turn automatic indentation back on, use:

Code:

:set autoindent

I've seen this problem too. It can be a real pain where indentation is critical.

Sometimes (not always), you can place the cursor at the beginning of what you just pasted and do
=G
to format to the bottom of the file.
Or just hilight the pasted text and format just that block with
=

Thanks. After poking around a bit more with these and other links, I think I have a more fundamental question. I have neither a .exrc nor a .vimrc *anywhere* on any of my machines -- neither the new, misbehaving one nor any of my older "good" machines.

And I see this ..
on a 'good' machine:

Code:

--- Options ---
  cscopetag  history=50  ttyfast  t_Sb=^[[4%dm
  cscopeverbose       hlsearch  ttymouse=xterm2     t_Sf=^[[3%dm
  helplang=en  ruler  viminfo='20,"50
  backspace=indent,eol,start
  cscopeprg=/usr/bin/cscope
  fileencodings=utf-8,latin1
  formatoptions=tcql

and on the 'bad' machine:

Code:

--- Options ---
  helplang=enrulerviminfo='20,"50
  history=50ttyfastt_Sb=^[[4%dm
  hlsearchttymouse=xterm2     t_Sf=^[[3%dm
  backspace=indent,eol,start
  fileencodings=ucs-bom,utf-8,latin1
  formatoptions=tcql
  guicursor=n-v-c:block,o:hor50,i-ci:hor15,r-cr:hor30,sm:block,a:blinkon0

(note - I pulled the above out of my putty logs. Unfortunately, logs did not capture the vi command I used to get that ouput, I don't remember what it was, and going back to find the web page that suggested it, I cant' find that either )

On both machines:

Code:

oracle:orcl$ find / -name '.exrc' 2>/dev/null

oracle:orcl$ find / -name '.vimrc' 2>/dev/null

oracle:orcl$

So at this point I'd like to just figure out how the two are different at all - regardless of the specifics of the differences. Without either of the two configuration files ...

---------- Post updated at 08:31 AM ---------- Previous update was at 08:26 AM ----------

Don,
thanks for the feedback. Actually, I *do* want to turn it off permanently. I've never had it turned on on any system I've ever worked on. Didn't even know it was an option. I'm not against learning new tricks, but this isn't one of them.

See my previous reply. At this point -- after investigating further -- I'm more curious about determining why two systems are working differently at all. Neither system has either .exrc or .vimrc files. So how is it that the two behave differently at all?

Did you check for different versions of vi and/or vim?
vi -v
vim -v
You might find an /etc/vimrc?

Bingo!
for vim versions, on the 'good' server I have version 7.0.237. On the 'bad' server I have version 7.2.411

And copying /etc/vimrc from the good server to my home directory on the bad, then doing a diff between that and the 'bad' /etc/vimrc, I see some difference. I'll explore those and reference back to the help links previously posted.