vi: abbreviations in .exrc?

[Doug O'Leary]

Hey;

This one's got me buggered. I have some serious html editing to do (yes, I do my html writing in vi like All Good Admins Should).

On my linux web server, I have a healthy set of abbreviations to make my editing tasks a little easier. I'm trying to put those same abbreviations into ~/.exrc on hpux and it's not picking them up.

I had originally thought that vi wasn't reading the .exrc file, but that proved not to be the case. All of the non-abbreviation commands are functional.

Can someone tell me what's wrong with these abbreviations and/or how to correct the problem?

ab li

ab uol
ab ola

ab ol1

ab ols

ab olc < ol type=circle>
ab td
ab tr
ab utr

Thanks.

Doug O'Leary

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Doug:

I think that abbreviations in 'vi' are really abbreviations in 'vim'. The HP-uX 'vi' editor is 'vi' and not the GNU 'vim'.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Doug O'Leary]

Hey;

I was considering the 'vim' idea as well; however, the man page for ex shows an abbreviation command.

When I make sure the .exrc file is gone and no EXINIT values, starting from a clean environment in other words, I can create an abbreviation thusly:

:ab ol1

then, entering ol1 with return or space will break it out the way it's supposed to.

The abbreviation li seems to be causing the problem:

:ab li
1. 
   
   results in "no recursive mapping"
   
   I *just* tried LI and that works. Bit of a pain, but better than the alternative. I haven't mapped li to anything. Anyone know how to find out what it is mapped to?
   
   Thanks.
   
   Doug

[OldSchool · Accepted solution]

i tried your map file on 3 flavors of AIX w/ vi (not vim) an it ran properly.

":ab" will display the current map assignments for a session.

I suspect the issue may be that "li" appears in the substituted command, causing "recurrsion" error message.

If thats the case, you should have similar issues with "td" and "tr", as the mapped sequence contain the characters that contain the originally mapped characters as well.

I suppose you could wipe .exrc, run the :ab to insure no mapping is in effect, and add the new definitions and see what happens.

[OldSchool]

also see ":map", which should be the "command line" macros fo vi.....

[Doug O'Leary]

Hey;

I did have problems with tr and td as well so it looks like your theory is correct. Since I hate caps, I changed the abbreviations to lli, ttr, and ttd respectively. Still a pain, but it works.

Thanks for the replies. I appreciate the insight.

Doug

[Doug O'Leary]

updated the abbrevitions as follows:

ab lli

ab ttr
ab ttd

You would think vi, of all things, would be standard across platforms

Thanks again for the replies.

Doug