"Danny A. van Delft" wrote:

> One last note, there are more but I'll stop at this, ensure that the
> EXINIT environment variable does not exist, or at least it should be
> empty. If not, your hard obtained .exrc file will not get sourced
> in...

ok....i'll update the saga....

a couple of days ago, i asked for some kind soul to share a working .exrc
with me because when i'd go into vi my arrow keys didn't work -- inspite of
having a .exrc file.  (and i got several reponses -- thank you!!)  i
assumed (ah ha!) that the problem was with my .exrc file.  before i get to
far into my story i'll say that in my /etc/profile.local file, i have an
export for 'exinit' to point it to /etc/.exrc.  the idea being -- these are
mpe people (who probably shouldn't be in vi to begin with, but that's a
different story :-) who are used to qedit and it would be good to have a
simple -- global -- .exrc file that maps the arrow keys.  i'll also add
that /etc/.exrc has rwx permissions of 744 and is a bytestream file.  so
mythinks everything should be configured properly...but alas, no joy....

so after all sorts of experimenting, it turns out that our/mpe version of
vi refuses to use any .exrc file *unless* it's in your home directory.  to
me that flies in the face of what the documentation says.  is this a bug??
i think so...but i thought i'd ask y'all....        - d

btw -- here's the relevant documentation from vi....

       exrc When this option is on, Ex and Vi access any .exrc files in
               the current directory during initialization.  If it is off,
               Ex and Vi ignore such files unless the current directory is
               the HOME directory.

               The default is noexrc.
------------

     Editor Initialization
          Initialization code consists of one or more Ex commands that are
          run when the editor starts up.  Initialization code may be
          obtained in several ways.

          (a)  If there is an environment variable named EXINIT with a non-

               null value, it is assumed to hold initialization code.  vi
               runs this code using an Ex source command.

          (b)  If EXINIT does not exist or has a null value, the editor
               attempts to find a file named .exrc under your home direc-
               tory.  If you have an environment variable named HOME, the
               value of this variable is assumed to be the name of your
               home directory.  vi runs the .exrc file using an Ex source
               command.  See environ(3) for more information on these envi-

               ronment variables.

          (c)  If the EXINIT variable or the $HOME/.exrc file sets the
               option variable exrc and there is a file named .exrc under
               the current directory, it is assumed to hold initialization
               code.  vi runs this code using an Ex source command.
--------------

          EXINIT   contains a list of Vi commands to be run on editor
                   startup.

--------------

     MPE/iX NOTES
          Due to limitations in the current implementation of MPE/iX, there

          are a number of limitations in the behavior of the vi command.

           * The cursor keys do not work.
              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

oh that's encouraging (not!).  but note -- there's nothing that says the
.exrc *has* to be only in your home directory.  perhaps i'm just spoiled by
mpe :-)

--
Donna Garverick     Sr. System Programmer
925-210-6631        [log in to unmask]

"Unix _is_ user friendly.
It's just very selective about who its friends are.
And sometimes even best friends have fights."

>>>MY opinions, not Longs Drug Stores'<<<