Cut-and-paste and indents in "vi"

[Ian Dennison_1]

Had a query from a DBA about why his cut and paste of a .sql script from one vi screen to another put so many indents in the new file.

I figured the short cut around this (tried as a different user ie. root) but cannot find the config items for vi formatting to correct this.

Can anyone provide a hint? Can I buy a vowel? Share and Enjoy! Ian

[Peter Nikitka]

Hi Ian,

there are many ways to put the content of one file into another via 'vi'.
- include the content of a file (:r otherfile)
- include the output of a command; non-empty lines e.g. :r!awk NF otherfile

Or remove trailing spaces after a paste
:%s/^ *//

Else SQL-output can be formatted in many many ways...

mfG Peter

[Andrew Merritt_2 · Accepted solution]

Hi Ian,
I would guess that he has the autoindent feature enabled. From within vi, you turn this off with:

:se noai

It is set in the .exrc file as

set autoindent

It's documented under 'man ex'.

Andrew

[Ian Dennison_1]

Andrew,

Magic answer, thanks for that. Problem solved.

Share and Enjoy! Ian