vi tab character bug on hp system

[Dave Decot]

> >  My system is an HP9000 825S, running HP-UX 2.0.  A new user found
> >the following problem, which appears to be a vi bug:
> >  Take any file.  Put a tab character by itself on the last line.
> ....
> >  On my system, vi goes into an infinite loop when `w' is hit with
> >the cursor on `l'.  Apparently, vi cannot handle the tab character
> ...
> 	Good one. I got it on an 840 2.0, 850 2.1

This is fixed in all releases of HP-UX after August, 1988.
That is, in Release 3.0 for the Series 800, and Release 6.5
for the Series 300.

If you encounter this bug in any of the earlier releases, you can hold
down ^C (i.e., repeat your interrupt character), and vi will eventually
give up and preserve your file.

Another alternative if you're running csh or ksh on Series 800 machines
(or Series 300 at Release 6.5) is to hit ^Z (i.e., use the suspend
character) to get back to the shell, use the 'jobs' command to determine
which job it is (say 2), and kill it with the SIGHUP signal (say,
"kill -HUP %2").  This will also preserve your file.

Dave Decot
decot at hpda