12.4 Job Control and autowrite: Real Time Savers!

I see too many people using a series of commands like the ones that follow. Programmers do this when they write and compile programs. Writers use this when they're making a draft file and running it through the formatter. They're probably wasting a lot of time and effort:

% 

vi somefile


   ...
Edit somefile, then quit vi
...
% 

someprog somefile


   ...
Process somefile
...
% 

vi somefile


   ...
Edit somefile again
...
% 

someprog somefile


   ...
Process somefile again
...

Each time they restart vi , they have to reset options and move the cursor to the place they were working before. After they restart, vi has forgotten the previous search (the n command), the previous action (the . command), the previous regular expression, the named and numbered buffers...

If your system has job control ( 12.8 ) , that'll solve all these problems. [1] Instead of quitting vi , get into command mode and write your buffer with the :w command. Stop the editor with the CTRL-z command. Then, process the file. When you're ready to do more editing, bring your vi job back into the foreground with fg . The editor will be just where it was.

[1] If it doesn't, you can still use a shell escape ( 30.26 ) .

Even better, you can set vi 's option called autowrite . If you've made any changes to the buffer before you press CTRL-z, vi will automatically write the buffer. You won't need to remember to type :w before you stop the editor. You can set autowrite at a colon ( : ) prompt, but I set it in my .exrc file ( 30.6 ) instead.

[You don't absolutely have to write your file before suspending vi . It's a good piece of advice, but not required by the job control mechanism. Typing CTRL-z will suspend the editor whether you've written out your files or not. - TOR  ]