Printing a file backwards
Paul Ruel
paul at sesame.UUCP
Tue Oct 8 16:59:00 AEST 1985
My feed's been unreliable recently, so I hope I'm not too untimely wih this
followup...In keeping with the UN*X philosophy of using big complicated tools
to solve small, inconsequential problems (:->), I suggest that you do the
following to reverse lines in a file:
1) Edit the file using `vi';
2) `O'pen a line and type the following:
:1m'a^[-ma
Note that the `^[' means an ESCape;
3) Delete this line into macro `a' by typing `"add' when positioned
on the just created line (the `' are NOT typed);
4) Move your cursor to some line in the file and mark that line
as line `a' by typing `ma';
5) Type `@a' and *poof* all the lines in the file (above the marked
line) will be reversed!
The reversing process is terminated with a message from `vi' which reads:
Move to a moved line
which, despite its appearance, _means_: `The reversing is done'.
By the way, this works on my 3b2/300 `vi', I hope it works on yours. `vi'
macro experimentation is a _lot_ safer than playing `hack' on your employer's
dime. Yes, you _can_ get `vi' stuck in loops, etc. I've got a number of
visual display time wasters written in `vi' macros.
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