(argh!) Better Trojan horse fix for Rnmail & Pnews

[Brian Thomson]

In article <1081 at psuhcx.psu.edu> wcf at psuhcx (Bill Fenner) writes:
>I have a big problem here... it seems that I have this bug, and there is
>no option modeline or modelines to vi.  The only m's are magic and mesg.
>I also can't find anything in the set list that looks even remotely like
>something that would do this.  I'm using Harris HCX/UX v3.0.  Anyone have
>any ideas?
>
>  Bill
>-- 
>    Bitnet: wcf at psuhcx.bitnet     Bill Fenner     | "Ain't got no cash,
>   Internet: wcf at hcx.psu.edu                      |  Ain't got no style
>  UUCP: {gatech,rutgers}!psuvax1!psuhcx!wcf       |  Ain't got no girls 
> Fido: Sysop at 263/42 (814/238 9633)  \hogbbs!wcf|  To make me smile"

My imperfect memory has modelines being introduced with the ex/vi
distributed with 4.2BSD.  I believe we received it in 1984.

In its initial incarnation, there was no settable option to enable
or disable the modelines function.  I reported it to the net as a
bug-like feature, together with the 'fix' of disabling the code that
was responsible.  In subsequent releases, an option was included to
control modelines.  What this all suggests is that your Harris release
must be derived from an early 4.2 vi.

I seem to remember another startup 'feature' that I didn't think very
much of.  Ex/vi would source a .exrc file in the current directory,
if one existed, as well as the ~/.exrc in your home directory.
Does this still happen in more modern vi's?
-- 
		    Brian Thomson,	    CSRI Univ. of Toronto
		    utcsri!uthub!thomson, thomson at hub.toronto.edu