*BSD News Article 83825


Return to BSD News archive

Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!howland.erols.net!EU.net!usenet2.news.uk.psi.net!uknet!usenet1.news.uk.psi.net!uknet!dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!awfulhak.demon.co.uk!awfulhak.demon.co.uk!awfulhak.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail
From: brian@anorak.coverform.lan (Brian Somers)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: vi question
Date: 27 Nov 1996 23:53:27 -0000
Organization: Coverform Ltd.
Lines: 35
Sender: brian@awfulhak.demon.co.uk
Message-ID: <57ik9n$31r@anorak.coverform.lan>
References: <57g04e$46b@newshost.lanl.gov>
Reply-To: brian%anorak.coverform.lan@awfulhak.demon.co.uk
NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.coverform.lan
X-NNTP-Posting-Host: awfulhak.demon.co.uk
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
X-Newsreader: knews 0.9.8

In article <57g04e$46b@newshost.lanl.gov>,
	crs@lanl.gov (Charlie Sorsby) writes:
: Is there a way to turn off the back-up feature of vi?
: 
: I'm running FreeBSD 3.1.5 from the Walnut Creek cd-rom.
: 
: Is this a recent (e.g. from BSD 4.4 Lite) addition to vi?  I've
: been using vi for a long time on several different BSD-based
: variants (BSD 4.[123], Ultrix, SunOS, ...) and have never run into
: this back-up thing before.
: 
: While I concede that it can be somewhat handy at times, it is a bit
: disconcerting for one accustomed to vi, like Unix, leaving it up to
: the user to worry about such things.  I'm undecided if I want to
: permanently turn it off so I guess I should also ask how to turn it
: back on if I decide I like it.
: 
: Finding *.bak in my directory is just too reminiscent of VMS's
: versions although I must say, if it must be done, having only a
: single back-up file is to be preferred to accumulating dozens of
: them...

Wow !  How wierd.  It's never done that on me - mind you, I've never
run version 3.1.5 :)

Seriously, the man page doesn't say anything except that it's triggered
by a SIGALRM...... but it doesn't seem to be the default (it doesn't
happen on my machins).  Have a look in /etc/vi.exrc and ~/.*exrc and
see if there's anything funny there.

-- 
Brian <brian%anorak.coverform.lan@awfulhak.demon.co.uk>
      <http://www.awfulhak.demon.co.uk/>
Don't _EVER_ lose your sense of humour....
.