Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 09:32:46 -0800 (PST) From: David Wolfskill <dhw@whistle.com> To: mlduke@concentric.net, newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: vi Message-ID: <199812161732.JAA14342@pau-amma.whistle.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.01.9812151652320.481-100000@concentric.net>
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>Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 19:24:06 -0700 (MST) >From: ML Duke <mlduke@concentric.net> >... >Enter vi. Using the "de" command=delete to end of word, the garbage >preceeding the good text vanished very quickly, then "dd" quickly >eliminated the garbage following the good text. If you start doing more things with vi, I expect you will be positively impressed with some of the things it can do. Some of them are even useful :-) [as opposed, for example, to using vi macros to generate & solve mazes in the edit buffer -- which I heard that someone did...]. One example of a general approach that, combined with the tendency in UNIX systems to have fairly special-purpose, small(ish) programs that do a small number of things, mostly by reading "standard input" and writing "standard output" (i.e., "filters"): The cursor-movement commands may be used, in combination with "!", to select (part of) the edit buffer as "standard input" for an arbitrary pipeline of commands; the "standard output" of that pipeline will replace the selected part of the edit buffer. Thus, to sort a file that you're editing: 1G!Gsort does the trick. But if you just want to sort a handful of (non-blank) lines, and you can arrange for an empty line above and below the lines in question, position the cursor at the first line and try: !}sort to sort just those lines. Of course, these could be rather more elaborate.... david -- David Wolfskill UNIX System Administrator dhw@whistle.com voice: (650) 577-7158 pager: (650) 371-4621 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
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