strange behaviour of vi

[Warren Tucker]

In article <117815 at pyramid.pyramid.com> cal at pyrtech.pyramid.com (Craig Alan Levin) writes:
>In article <1990Jun25.165806.16769 at tubsibr.uucp> petri at tubsibr.UUCP (Stefan Petri) writes:
>>The `magic pattern' seems to be ``^.*ei:.*:.*''
>Yes, there is an undocumented feature that will take the first line as
>initial commands.  The password file should be safe since the first
>line should begin with "root:".

Actually, the first "few" or last "few,", "few" ~= 5
and the test is for 'e' or 'v' followed by 'x' or 'i'.
ex:
ei:
vi:
vx:
are all canditidates in near the end or beginning of the file,
regardless of whether the string appears at column one or now.
I place
/* vi: set tabwidth=4 shiftwidth=4: */
in all my C source and
; vi: set tabwidth=8 shiftwidth=8:
in assembler
at the -bottom- of the file.

Cheers.
 
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Warren Tucker, TuckerWare  emory!n4hgf!wht or wht at n4hgf.Mt-Park.GA.US
Any perceptible delay will eventually get on your nerves. --Bob Hyers