Re: Backspace and Delete in vi.

Steve Welsh wrote:

Nathan wrote:

It was set to "xterm" I changed it to vt100 with no change in result.

Robert Newson wrote:


Nathan wrote:


I need to interact with a number of Unix/Linux servers at work.  I
use putty as an SSH client to do so.
I use vi as my editor of choice.
On some of these servers, when i try to backspace, or delete, text in
VI, i end up with varied results.  Sometimes when i press the delete
key, it doesnt delete a character, rather, it capitalizes it. and
backspace generally does nothing.

Both keys work at the shell prompt, and in other full screen editors.
Why does this happen to me in vi?



At a guess, the term setting is wrong.

Pressing the DELETE key generates an esc sequence (ESC [ 3 ~) which
includes a TILDE (~) character - which is the convert char case
command of VI.

what's the value of:

$ echo $term

I've had it set (automatically) to ANSI and VI messed up as the
terminal being emulated was a VT100; changing it thus fixed the problem.

If I recall correctly, the correct key for deleting a single character
is 'X' in command mode. That works in every single `vi' or `vim'
environment I have ever used.


Not quite: it depends which character you mean to delete:

 lower case   x - delete character under cursor, unless at end of line, then
 upper case   X - delete character left of cursor.

However, vim allows use of the arrow keys, etc whilst in INPUT mode as it[1] spots the ESC sequence arriving in a very short space of time.

[1] more likely the library that VIM is using.



Steve



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