AIX alternatives to vi

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  • #49979
    David Teh
    Participant

      Hi folks,

      Just wondering what other (free?) editors you use to ‘deal’ with the 2048 limit on AIX?

      TIA!

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    • Author
      Replies
      • #64369
        Steve Carter
        Participant

          Try ‘vim’.

          Steve

        • #64370

          David Teh wrote:

          Hi folks,

          Just wondering what other (free?) editors you use to ‘deal’ with the 2048 limit on AIX?

          TIA!

          I would HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend you learn to use vi/vim. You will not regret it. You may need to install the newest version of vi/vim to beat the limit or tweak the AIX settings.

          -- Max Drown (Infor)

        • #64371
          David Teh
          Participant

            Thanks guys!

          • #64372
            Russ Ross
            Participant

              We have also been using vim as a vi look alike that can handle long lines.

              emacs is another nice free UNIX editor, in fact one of the best, but is not that similar to vi, and how much time and effort you want to spend on different editors could influence your choice.

              Anoter simple approach is to use Ultra-Edit (near free must have editor) on your PC and do a seemless FTP-edit of the file on your UNIX box.

              Now having said that let me mention a couple of things to be aware of when using vi or vim.

              By default the /tmp directory will be used by the editor.

              That might not be desirable especially if editing very large file(s) like we do sometimes.

              This can fill up the /tmp file system which I would rather not have happen.

              There are a couple of ways I get around this.

              One way is to create a file called .exrc in all the users home directories which looks like this in my case:

              Code:

              ” Begin Header ============================================================

              “——
              ” Name:
              “——

              ” .exrc

              “———
              ” Purpose:
              “———

              ” set the desired behavor of vi and vim

              “——-
              ” Notes:
              “——-

              ” This file must be in the users home directory

              ” If the EXINIT environment variable is set in the login .profile file(s)
              ” it will over ride the settings in this file


              “———
              ” History:
              “———

              ” 2008.02.21 Russ Ross
              ”           – wrote initial version

              ” End Header ==============================================================

              “—————————————–
              ” set the working directory for vi and vim
              “—————————————–

              set dir=/work

              “——————————————
              ” set shiftwidth soft tabs for > and < keys "------------------------------------------ set sw=4 "----------------------------------- " set distance between the tab stops "----------------------------------- set ts=4

              Another way to prevent vim from using the /tmp file system and get it to use the /work file system in my case is to create the following entries in the .profile.local.end file

              Code:

              #————————————————————————–
              # set the behavior of the vi and vim editor
              # by defining the EXINIT environment variable for these settings:
              #
              #    dir = the working directory (will need symbolic link for /work -> /work#)
              #    sw  = shiftwidth soft tabs for > and < keys #    ts  = distance between the tab stops # # these settings will override what is in the $HOME/.exrc file if it exists # # # Note to system admin: # # for safety in case someone use vi create a symbolic link as follows # #    chmod 775 /work #    chown root:staff /work #    cd /work #    mkdir vi.recover #    chmod 777 vi.recover #    chown hci:staff vi.recover #    cd /var/tmp #    ln -s /work/vi.recover vi.recover #     # if you want to always make sure vim is used instead of vi then do # #    cd /usr/bin #    mv vi vi_hide #    ln -s vim vi # #--------------------------------------------------------------------------   export EXINIT="set dir=/work sw=4 ts=4"

              Russ Ross
              RussRoss318@gmail.com

            • #64373
              Kevin Kinnell
              Participant

                jEdit is a very capable editor written in Java.  I’ve never had a problem (other than a bit of a slowdown) with very large files, but ymmv.  It can edit across ssh/telnet/… sessions.

                If it had been around when I started using Emacs, I might not have started.

                I am NOT going to try to convince you to use Emacs.  Been down that road, and not everyone wants to learn a new Operating System anyway…

              • #64374
                Kevin Scantlan
                Participant

                  Where does one get VIM?

                • #64375

                  http://www.vim.org/download.php

                  P.S. Kevin, I work down the street at Boone Hospital Center. I’d be happy to help you get up to speed on vi/vim.

                  -- Max Drown (Infor)

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