Navigating Log Files With VIM

One of the main problems with VI, VIM and GVIM is the navigation between multiple files. The “:n” and “:rew” commands may get somebody through the basics. But seriously it’s not enough. The secret is writing little macros for the work being done. Often this is such a daunting task that most people haven’t got a clue. So hence this article. The idea presented here is to show how to make a navigation file so that once the cursor is over the file name in question, or information needed to identify the file, two keystrokes will take you to that file.

First there is the ~/.vimrc file or equivalent depending on the OS. Locate it. Add to this file the macros.

:map ** “zyy:@z<Enter>

This command maps the keystrokes “**”, the two asterisks hit in rapid succession, to the commands that follow it. The command that follows reads the line the cursor is on into the z buffer and then executes that buffer. This is very useful because now the commands you want to test can be written on a line and then executed by pressing “**”. It opens the world of macros to you.

So lets write a macro that will bounce the window between the current file and the last file you edited. Say you started gvim by typing gvim file1 file2 file3 and once in file1 you then typed :n and :n again. So you are now in file2. The goal of this macro is to let you move to file2 without doing a “:rew” and “:n”. So start a new line in file 3 and type in:

:map *; :e#<Enter>

Then press “**” over the line so this macro becomes available. Now if you press “*;” you’ll go to file2.

Now we are ready to write some macros to view log like files. I’ll start with the one I wrote yesterday. Websites require a file named “Sitemap.xml” which describes each file’s location, importance, and frequency they should be crawled by the search spiders. Each line has a format similar to this:

<url><loc>http://www.domain-name.com/index.html</loc><priority>0.50</priority><changefreq>weekly</changefreq></url>

Three macros might be all that is needed to navigate a website via its Sitemap.xml. File navigation this way ensures the Sitemap.xml always stays relevant. So the first macro might be something like:

:map *S :e ~/path/Sitemap.xml<Enter>

This is simple enough to understand. When “*S” is typed it will take you to the Sitemap.xml file.

Now the following is all that is needed to edit the files listed in the Sitemap.xml by putting the cursor on the line containing the file and typing “*e”:

:map *e :w<Enter>$0fhf<mz0fml”ay`zo:e ~/path-to-website/<Esc>”ap<Esc>”zyyu:@z<Enter>

First the file is written out with this command “:w<Enter>”. Depending on your habits you may want to remove that.
Then the cursor is moved to the end of the line and then to the beginning with “$0″. There is history to this that is wasted on VIM/GVIM.
Then a search for the ‘h’ in “http” is done, to get to the start of the URL, with “fh” and then another search for the end of the URL with “f<”
Then that location is marked as location “z” with the command “mz”. Then we go back to the start of the file name which for my Sitemaps can be done for searching for the “m” in com. You may have to vary the search depending on your domain name. Then moving the cursor over to the “/”. So altogether it’s “0fml”.
Now yank the name of the file into the a buffer using the backwards tick “”ay`z”.
Now create a line with the command needed to edit the file just yanked “o:e ~/path-to-website/<Esc>”ap<Esc>”
Finally yank the newly created line into the z buffer, undo the line just created, and then execute the z buffer so the editor is now editing the file “”zyyu:@z<Enter>”

The next command sets the browser to the file in question:

:map *b :w<Enter>$0fhf<mz0fh”ay`zo:!gnome-open <Esc>”ap<Esc>”zyyu:@z<Enter>

These techniques can be used for almost anything to avoid typing names. In fact a list of all files you edit, in a centralized place, is all that’s needed to prevent ever repeatedly typing out a file name again. Once familiar with these techniques most of the files needing editing can be gotten to with two key strokes. This gives VI, VIM, and GVIM the ability to navigate files more easily than an IDE without losing all the power you surrender when using an IDE. And it’s all free!

Ubuntu Hangs On Reboot!

I installed a fresh copy of Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope 9.04 on a laptop this morning. Unfortunately it hangs on shut-down showing no indication it has hung. The screen is almost completely black execpt for a slowly blinking underscore at the top left of the screen. When ctl-alt-del is struck then the message “md: stopping all md devices” is displayed and the machine continues to reboot normally. Unfortunately a keyboard must be attached to this laptop before the ctl-alt-del can be entered. Granted reboots are not normal. A google search on this problem shows no solutions though many people have encountered the problem. It’s just another example of how poorly the Ubuntu releases are tested. It’s sort of an anything goes that is cool atmosphere with very little testing. Or a “just barely good enough to continue” paradigm. At this point I’m seriously thinking of switching to another distribution. One that hopefully undergoes stringent testing. However I’m afraid it will not support all the hardware like Ubuntu does. Life consists of many trade-offs.

On a related issue Ubuntu needs to reconfigure their boot charts to include how long it took to complete the entire reboot cycle. If it takes two minutes to shut down, another minute to make it through the grub stuff, and only 20 seconds to boot the entire process should say 3:20 instead of just :20 as it now does.

Backups Via GIT: gibak

What’s the best way to move data between two machines? As in migrating off this laptop and on to another laptop? Rsync with tar and rdiff-backup come immediately to mind. Why not with “git” instead? Supposedly git is much faster than anything and compacts stuff better too. Because of it’s strange algorithms you don’t have to worry about date discrepancies between machines either. It was written by Linus to be better than sliced bread. Here Linus is giving a presentation at Google on “git”. So every machine could contain exactly the same information across my networks. And since it is a distributed version control system, DVCS, what happens in Las Vegas doesn’t stay in Las Vegas. You’d also have the various versions of the data too.

Trying not to reinvent the wheel a quick google was done. Lucky thought on my part because somebody else has already made an application for this purpose called “gibak“. Here’s what the author says:

* it is more space-efficient than most incremental backup schemes, since it does file compression and both textual *and* binary deltas (in particular, it’s better than solutions relying on hardlinks or incremental backups à la tar/cpio)
* its transport mechanism is more efficient than rsync’s
* it is fast: recoving your data is *faster* than cp -a
* you keep the full revision history
* powerful toolset with a rich vocabulary

So what’s the catch? I don’t know. I’ll be playing with it today and update this blog with my results…

I played with it for quite some time but for some reason it would archive over 8GBs, which is all the space I currently have left on this laptop, and die. As a result I’m looking at using a drive on the network before I can resume this. (And unfortunately the documentation for doing this is lacking and the wee little bit that does exist is so badly incorrect it makes me think poorly on the testing that never gets done on Ubuntu.)

How To Install Jslint on Ubuntu

At my entry http://ioconnor.wordpress.com/2009/04/24/javascript-testing/ you’ll notice there are two entirely different lint programs out there for JavaScript. I installed and made an entry on how to install JavaScript Lint here. This posting describes how to install the other version of lint, jslint, under ubuntu. I even tested it under Ubuntu 8.04 and 9.04. Follow these steps:

1. sudo mkdir -p /my/bin
   I prefer not to much around in the home directory but to create all custom stuff right off the root so I know what is mine. You can choose some other directory if you’d like.
2. cd /my/bin
3. sudo wget http://www.jslint.com/rhino/jslint.js
   If they ever remove this send me a mssage and I’ll post it.
4. sudo chmod a+x jslint.js
   Not sure if this is needed but it’s habit…
5. sudo apt-get install rhino
   I did not have rhino installed on 9.04 but it does not hurt to verify with this command.
6. time rhino jslint.js jslint.js
   jslint is written in javascript. So run it on itself to see if there are any errors or warnings.

That’s pretty simple. Too bad their website does not make it simple. In fact their website does not contain enough information. I had to google about for a while to figure it all out. Anyways here is the output when ran on itself. Then further down I use the other lint program on it.

JSLint does allow options. I am going to at some point see if I can make an include file that will specify just the options I want.

JSLint also has a good section on coding standards. I like it.

time rhino /my/bin/jslint.js /my/bin/jslint.js
Lint at line 4 character 236: eval is evil.
“use strict”;JSLINT=(function(){var 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‘},tt:{},u:{},ul:{},’var’:{}},ids,implied,inblock,indent,jsonmode,lines,lookahead,member,membersOnly,nexttoken,noreach,option,predefined,prereg,prevtoken,pseudorule={‘first-child’:true,link:true,visited:true,hover:true,active:true,focus:true,lang:true,’first-letter’:true,’first-line’:true,before:true,after:true},rhino={defineClass:true,deserialize:true,gc:true,help:true,load:true,loadClass:true,print:true,quit:true,readFile:true,readUrl:true,runCommand:true,seal:true,serialize:true,spawn:true,sync:true,toint32:true,version:true},scope,sidebar={System:true},src,stack,standard={Array:true,Boolean:true,Date:true,decodeURI:true,decodeURIComponent:true,encodeURI:true,encodeURIComponent:true,Error:true,’eval’:true,EvalError:true,Function:true,isFinite:true,isNaN:true,JSON:true,Math:true,Number:true,Object:true,parseInt:true,parseFloat:true,RangeError:true,ReferenceError:true,RegExp:true,String:true,SyntaxError:true,TypeError:true,URIError:true},standard_member={E:true,LN2:true,LN10:true,LOG2E:true,LOG10E:true,PI:true,SQRT1_2:true,SQRT2:true,MAX_VALUE:true,MIN_VALUE:true,NEGATIVE_INFINITY:true,POSITIVE_INFINITY:true},syntax={},tab,token,urls,warnings,widget={alert:true,animator:true,appleScript:true,beep:true,bytesToUIString:true,Canvas:true,chooseColor:true,chooseFile:true,chooseFolder:true,closeWidget:true,COM:true,convertPathToHFS:true,convertPathToPlatform:true,CustomAnimation:true,escape:true,FadeAnimation:true,filesystem:true,Flash:true,focusWidget:true,form:true,FormField:true,Frame:true,HotKey:true,Image:true,include:true,isApplicationRunning:true,iTunes:true,konfabulatorVersion:true,log:true,md5:true,MenuItem:true,MoveAnimation:true,openURL:true,play:true,Point:true,popupMenu:true,preferenceGroups:true,preferences:true,print:true,prompt:true,random:true,Rectangle:true,reloadWidget:true,ResizeAnimation:true,resolvePath:true,resumeUpdates:true,RotateAnimation:true,runCommand:true,runCommandInBg:true,saveAs:true,savePreferences:true,screen:true,ScrollBar:true,showWidgetPreferences:true,sleep:true,speak:true,Style:true,suppressUpdates:true,system:true,tellWidget:true,Text:true,TextArea:true,Timer:true,unescape:true,updateNow:true,URL:true,Web:true,widget:true,Window:true,XMLDOM:true,XMLHttpRequest:true,yahooCheckLogin:true,yahooLogin:true,yahooLogout:true},xmode,xquote,ax=/@cc|<\/?|script|\]*s\]|<\s*!|&lt/i,cx=/[\u0000-\u001f\u007f-\u009f\u00ad\u0600-\u0604\u070f\u17b4\u17b5\u200c-\u200f\u2028-\u202f\u2060-\u206f\ufeff\ufff0-\uffff]/,tx=/^\s*([(){}\[.,:;'"~\?\]#@]|==?=?|\/(\*(global|extern|jslint|member|members)?|=|\/)?|\*[\/=]?|\+[+=]?|-[\-=]?|%=?|&[&=]?|\|[|=]?|>>?>?=?|<([\/=!]|\!(\[|--)?|<=?)?|\^=?|\!=?=?|[a-zA-Z_$][a-zA-Z0-9_$]*|[0-9]+([xX][0-9a-fA-F]+|\.[0-9]*)?([eE][+\-]?[0-9]+)?)/,hx=/^\s*(['"=>\/&#]|<(?:\/|\!(?:–)?)?|[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9_\-]*|[0-9]+|–|.)/,nx=/[\u0000-\u001f&<"\/\\\u007f-\u009f\u00ad\u0600-\u0604\u070f\u17b4\u17b5\u200c-\u200f\u2028-\u202f\u2060-\u206f\ufeff\ufff0-\uffff]/,nxg=/[\u0000-\u001f&<"\/\\\u007f-\u009f\u00ad\u0600-\u0604\u070f\u17b4\u17b5\u200c-\u200f\u2028-\u202f\u2060-\u206f\ufeff\ufff0-\uffff]/g,ox=/[>&]|<[\/!]?|–/,lx=/\*\/|\/\*/,ix=/^([a-zA-Z_$][a-zA-Z0-9_$]*)$/,jx=/^(?:javascript|jscript|ecmascript|vbscript|mocha|livescript)\s*:/i,ux=/&|\+|\u00AD|\.\.|\/\*|%[^;]|base64|url|expression|data|mailto/i,sx=/^\s*([{:#*%.=,>+\[\]@()”‘;*]|[a-zA-Z0-9_][a-zA-Z0-9_\-]*|<\/|\/\*)/,ssx=/^\s*([@#!"'};:\-%.=,+\[\]()*_]|[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9._\-]*|\/\*?|\d+(?:\.\d+)?|<\/)/,qx=/[^a-zA-Z0-9-_\/ ]/,dx=/[\[\]\/\\”‘*<>.&:(){}+=#]/,rx={outer:hx,html:hx,style:sx,styleproperty:ssx};function F(){}

Lint at line 4 character 6051: eval is evil.
“use strict”;JSLINT=(function(){var adsafe_id,adsafe_may,adsafe_went,anonname,approved,atrule={‘import’:true,media:true,’font-face’:true,page:true},banned={apply:true,’arguments’:true,call:true,callee:true,caller:true,constructor:true,’eval’:true,prototype:true,unwatch:true,valueOf:true,watch:true},boolOptions={adsafe:true,bitwise:true,browser:true,cap:true,css:true,debug:true,eqeqeq:true,evil:true,forin:true,fragment:true,immed:true,laxbreak:true,newcap:true,nomen:true,on:true,onevar:true,passfail:true,plusplus:true,regexp:true,rhino:true,undef:true,safe:true,sidebar:true,strict:true,sub:true,white:true,widget:true},browser={alert:true,blur:true,clearInterval:true,clearTimeout:true,close:true,closed:true,confirm:true,console:true,Debug:true,defaultStatus:true,document:true,event:true,focus:true,frames:true,getComputedStyle:true,history:true,Image:true,length:true,location:true,moveBy:true,moveTo:true,name:true,navigator:true,onblur:true,onerror:true,onfocus:true,onload:true,onresize:true,onunload:true,open:true,opener:true,opera:true,Option:true,parent:true,print:true,prompt:true,resizeBy:true,resizeTo:true,screen:true,scroll:true,scrollBy:true,scrollTo:true,setInterval:true,setTimeout:true,status:true,top:true,XMLHttpRequest:true},cssAttributeData,cssAny,cssColorData={“aliceblue”:true,”antiquewhite”:true,”aqua”:true,”aquamarine”:true,”azure”:true,”beige”:true,”bisque”:true,”black”:true,”blanchedalmond”:true,”blue”:true,”blueviolet”:true,”brown”:true,”burlywood”:true,”cadetblue”:true,”chartreuse”:true,”chocolate”:true,”coral”:true,”cornflowerblue”:true,”cornsilk”:true,”crimson”:true,”cyan”:true,”darkblue”:true,”darkcyan”:true,”darkgoldenrod”:true,”darkgray”:true,”darkgreen”:true,”darkkhaki”:true,”darkmagenta”:true,”darkolivegreen”:true,”darkorange”:true,”darkorchid”:true,”darkred”:true,”darksalmon”:true,”darkseagreen”:true,”darkslateblue”:true,”darkslategray”:true,”darkturquoise”:true,”darkviolet”:true,”deeppink”:true,”deepskyblue”:true,”dimgray”:true,”dodgerblue”:true,”firebrick”:true,”floralwhite”:true,”forestgreen”:true,”fuchsia”:true,”gainsboro”:true,”ghostwhite”:true,”gold”:true,”goldenrod”:true,”gray”:true,”green”:true,”greenyellow”:true,”honeydew”:true,”hotpink”:true,”indianred”:true,”indigo”:true,”ivory”:true,”khaki”:true,”lavender”:true,”lavenderblush”:true,”lawngreen”:true,”lemonchiffon”:true,”lightblue”:true,”lightcoral”:true,”lightcyan”:true,”lightgoldenrodyellow”:true,”lightgreen”:true,”lightpink”:true,”lightsalmon”:true,”lightseagreen”:true,”lightskyblue”:true,”lightslategray”:true,”lightsteelblue”:true,”lightyellow”:true,”lime”:true,”limegreen”:true,”linen”:true,”magenta”:true,”maroon”:true,”mediumaquamarine”:true,”mediumblue”:true,”mediumorchid”:true,”mediumpurple”:true,”mediumseagreen”:true,”mediumslateblue”:true,”mediumspringgreen”:true,”mediumturquoise”:true,”mediumvioletred”:true,”midnightblue”:true,”mintcream”:true,”mistyrose”:true,”moccasin”:true,”navajowhite”:true,”navy”:true,”oldlace”:true,”olive”:true,”olivedrab”:true,”orange”:true,”orangered”:true,”orchid”:true,”palegoldenrod”:true,”palegreen”:true,”paleturquoise”:true,”palevioletred”:true,”papayawhip”:true,”peachpuff”:true,”peru”:true,”pink”:true,”plum”:true,”powderblue”:true,”purple”:true,”red”:true,”rosybrown”:true,”royalblue”:true,”saddlebrown”:true,”salmon”:true,”sandybrown”:true,”seagreen”:true,”seashell”:true,”sienna”:true,”silver”:true,”skyblue”:true,”slateblue”:true,”slategray”:true,”snow”:true,”springgreen”:true,”steelblue”:true,”tan”:true,”teal”:true,”thistle”:true,”tomato”:true,”turquoise”:true,”violet”:true,”wheat”:true,”white”:true,”whitesmoke”:true,”yellow”:true,”yellowgreen”:true},cssBorderStyle,cssLengthData={‘%’:true,’cm’:true,’em’:true,’ex’:true,’in’:true,’mm’:true,’pc’:true,’pt’:true,’px’:true},escapes={‘\b’:'\\b’,'\t’:'\\t’,'\n’:'\\n’,'\f’:'\\f’,'\r’:'\\r’,'”‘:’\\”‘,’/':’\\/’,'\\’:'\\\\’},funct,functions,global,htmltag={a:{},abbr:{},acronym:{},address:{},applet:{},area:{empty:true,parent:’ map ‘},b:{},base:{empty:true,parent:’ head ‘},bdo:{},big:{},blockquote:{},body:{parent:’ html noframes ‘},br:{empty:true},button:{},canvas:{parent:’ body p div th td ‘},caption:{parent:’ table ‘},center:{},cite:{},code:{},col:{empty:true,parent:’ table colgroup ‘},colgroup:{parent:’ table ‘},dd:{parent:’ dl ‘},del:{},dfn:{},dir:{},div:{},dl:{},dt:{parent:’ dl ‘},em:{},embed:{},fieldset:{},font:{},form:{},frame:{empty:true,parent:’ frameset ‘},frameset:{parent:’ html frameset ‘},h1:{},h2:{},h3:{},h4:{},h5:{},h6:{},head:{parent:’ html ‘},html:{parent:’*'},hr:{empty:true},i:{},iframe:{},img:{empty:true},input:{empty:true},ins:{},kbd:{},label:{},legend:{parent:’ fieldset ‘},li:{parent:’ dir menu ol ul ‘},link:{empty:true,parent:’ head ‘},map:{},menu:{},meta:{empty:true,parent:’ head noframes noscript ‘},noframes:{parent:’ html body ‘},noscript:{parent:’ body head noframes ‘},object:{},ol:{},optgroup:{parent:’ select ‘},option:{parent:’ optgroup select ‘},p:{},param:{empty:true,parent:’ applet object ‘},pre:{},q:{},samp:{},script:{empty:true,parent:’ body div frame head iframe p pre span ‘},select:{},small:{},span:{},strong:{},style:{parent:’ head ‘,empty:true},sub:{},sup:{},table:{},tbody:{parent:’ table ‘},td:{parent:’ tr ‘},textarea:{},tfoot:{parent:’ table ‘},th:{parent:’ tr ‘},thead:{parent:’ table ‘},title:{parent:’ head ‘},tr:{parent:’ table tbody thead tfoot ‘},tt:{},u:{},ul:{},’var’:{}},ids,implied,inblock,indent,jsonmode,lines,lookahead,member,membersOnly,nexttoken,noreach,option,predefined,prereg,prevtoken,pseudorule={‘first-child’:true,link:true,visited:true,hover:true,active:true,focus:true,lang:true,’first-letter’:true,’first-line’:true,before:true,after:true},rhino={defineClass:true,deserialize:true,gc:true,help:true,load:true,loadClass:true,print:true,quit:true,readFile:true,readUrl:true,runCommand:true,seal:true,serialize:true,spawn:true,sync:true,toint32:true,version:true},scope,sidebar={System:true},src,stack,standard={Array:true,Boolean:true,Date:true,decodeURI:true,decodeURIComponent:true,encodeURI:true,encodeURIComponent:true,Error:true,’eval’:true,EvalError:true,Function:true,isFinite:true,isNaN:true,JSON:true,Math:true,Number:true,Object:true,parseInt:true,parseFloat:true,RangeError:true,ReferenceError:true,RegExp:true,String:true,SyntaxError:true,TypeError:true,URIError:true},standard_member={E:true,LN2:true,LN10:true,LOG2E:true,LOG10E:true,PI:true,SQRT1_2:true,SQRT2:true,MAX_VALUE:true,MIN_VALUE:true,NEGATIVE_INFINITY:true,POSITIVE_INFINITY:true},syntax={},tab,token,urls,warnings,widget={alert:true,animator:true,appleScript:true,beep:true,bytesToUIString:true,Canvas:true,chooseColor:true,chooseFile:true,chooseFolder:true,closeWidget:true,COM:true,convertPathToHFS:true,convertPathToPlatform:true,CustomAnimation:true,escape:true,FadeAnimation:true,filesystem:true,Flash:true,focusWidget:true,form:true,FormField:true,Frame:true,HotKey:true,Image:true,include:true,isApplicationRunning:true,iTunes:true,konfabulatorVersion:true,log:true,md5:true,MenuItem:true,MoveAnimation:true,openURL:true,play:true,Point:true,popupMenu:true,preferenceGroups:true,preferences:true,print:true,prompt:true,random:true,Rectangle:true,reloadWidget:true,ResizeAnimation:true,resolvePath:true,resumeUpdates:true,RotateAnimation:true,runCommand:true,runCommandInBg:true,saveAs:true,savePreferences:true,screen:true,ScrollBar:true,showWidgetPreferences:true,sleep:true,speak:true,Style:true,suppressUpdates:true,system:true,tellWidget:true,Text:true,TextArea:true,Timer:true,unescape:true,updateNow:true,URL:true,Web:true,widget:true,Window:true,XMLDOM:true,XMLHttpRequest:true,yahooCheckLogin:true,yahooLogin:true,yahooLogout:true},xmode,xquote,ax=/@cc|<\/?|script|\]*s\]|<\s*!|&lt/i,cx=/[\u0000-\u001f\u007f-\u009f\u00ad\u0600-\u0604\u070f\u17b4\u17b5\u200c-\u200f\u2028-\u202f\u2060-\u206f\ufeff\ufff0-\uffff]/,tx=/^\s*([(){}\[.,:;'"~\?\]#@]|==?=?|\/(\*(global|extern|jslint|member|members)?|=|\/)?|\*[\/=]?|\+[+=]?|-[\-=]?|%=?|&[&=]?|\|[|=]?|>>?>?=?|<([\/=!]|\!(\[|--)?|<=?)?|\^=?|\!=?=?|[a-zA-Z_$][a-zA-Z0-9_$]*|[0-9]+([xX][0-9a-fA-F]+|\.[0-9]*)?([eE][+\-]?[0-9]+)?)/,hx=/^\s*(['"=>\/&#]|<(?:\/|\!(?:–)?)?|[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9_\-]*|[0-9]+|–|.)/,nx=/[\u0000-\u001f&<"\/\\\u007f-\u009f\u00ad\u0600-\u0604\u070f\u17b4\u17b5\u200c-\u200f\u2028-\u202f\u2060-\u206f\ufeff\ufff0-\uffff]/,nxg=/[\u0000-\u001f&<"\/\\\u007f-\u009f\u00ad\u0600-\u0604\u070f\u17b4\u17b5\u200c-\u200f\u2028-\u202f\u2060-\u206f\ufeff\ufff0-\uffff]/g,ox=/[>&]|<[\/!]?|–/,lx=/\*\/|\/\*/,ix=/^([a-zA-Z_$][a-zA-Z0-9_$]*)$/,jx=/^(?:javascript|jscript|ecmascript|vbscript|mocha|livescript)\s*:/i,ux=/&|\+|\u00AD|\.\.|\/\*|%[^;]|base64|url|expression|data|mailto/i,sx=/^\s*([{:#*%.=,>+\[\]@()”‘;*]|[a-zA-Z0-9_][a-zA-Z0-9_\-]*|<\/|\/\*)/,ssx=/^\s*([@#!"'};:\-%.=,+\[\]()*_]|[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9._\-]*|\/\*?|\d+(?:\.\d+)?|<\/)/,qx=/[^a-zA-Z0-9-_\/ ]/,dx=/[\[\]\/\\”‘*<>.&:(){}+=#]/,rx={outer:hx,html:hx,style:sx,styleproperty:ssx};function F(){}

Lint at line 119 character 36: eval is evil.
if(!option.evil&&nexttoken.value===’eval’){warning(“eval is evil.”,nexttoken);}}

Lint at line 350 character 604: eval is evil.
return this;},led:function(){error(“Expected an operator and instead saw ‘{a}’.”,nexttoken,nexttoken.value);}};type(‘(regexp)’,function(){return this;});delim(‘(endline)’);delim(‘(begin)’);delim(‘(end)’).reach=true;delim(‘</’).reach=true;delim(‘<!’);delim(‘<!–’);delim(‘–>’);delim(‘(error)’).reach=true;delim(‘}’).reach=true;delim(‘)’);delim(‘]’);delim(‘”‘).reach=true;delim(“‘”).reach=true;delim(‘;’);delim(‘:’).reach=true;delim(‘,’);delim(‘#’);delim(‘@’);reserve(‘else’);reserve(‘case’).reach=true;reserve(‘catch’);reserve(‘default’).reach=true;reserve(‘finally’);reservevar(‘arguments’);reservevar(‘eval’);reservevar(‘false’);reservevar(‘Infinity’);reservevar(‘NaN’);reservevar(‘null’);reservevar(‘this’);reservevar(‘true’);reservevar(‘undefined’);assignop(‘=’,'assign’,20);assignop(‘+=’,'assignadd’,20);assignop(‘-=’,'assignsub’,20);assignop(‘*=’,'assignmult’,20);assignop(‘/=’,'assigndiv’,20).nud=function(){error(“A regular expression literal can be confused with ‘/=’.”);};assignop(‘%=’,'assignmod’,20);bitwiseassignop(‘&=’,'assignbitand’,20);bitwiseassignop(‘|=’,'assignbitor’,20);bitwiseassignop(‘^=’,'assignbitxor’,20);bitwiseassignop(‘<<=’,'assignshiftleft’,20);bitwiseassignop(‘>>=’,'assignshiftright’,20);bitwiseassignop(‘>>>=’,'assignshiftrightunsigned’,20);infix(‘?’,function(left,that){that.left=left;that.right=parse(10);advance(‘:’);that['else']=parse(10);return that;},30);infix(‘||’,'or’,40);infix(‘&&’,'and’,50);bitwise(‘|’,'bitor’,70);bitwise(‘^’,'bitxor’,80);bitwise(‘&’,'bitand’,90);relation(‘==’,function(left,right){if(option.eqeqeq){warning(“Expected ‘{a}’ and instead saw ‘{b}’.”,this,’===’,'==’);}else if(isPoorRelation(left)){warning(“Use ‘{a}’ to compare with ‘{b}’.”,this,’===’,left.value);}else if(isPoorRelation(right)){warning(“Use ‘{a}’ to compare with ‘{b}’.”,this,’===’,right.value);}

Lint at line 373 character 34: eval is evil.
if(!option.evil){if(left.value===’eval’||left.value===’Function’||left.value===’execScript’){warning(“eval is evil.”,left);}else if(p[0]&&p[0].id===’(string)’&&(left.value===’setTimeout’||left.value===’setInterval’)){warning(“Implied eval is evil. Pass a function instead of a string.”,left);}}

Lint at line 445 character 248: eval is evil.
if(o.safe){o.browser=false;o.css=false;o.debug=false;o.eqeqeq=true;o.evil=false;o.forin=false;o.nomen=true;o.on=false;o.rhino=false;o.safe=true;o.sidebar=false;o.strict=true;o.sub=false;o.undef=true;o.widget=false;predefined.Date=false;predefined['eval']=false;predefined.Function=false;predefined.Object=false;predefined.ADSAFE=true;predefined.lib=true;}

real    1m52.358s
user    1m52.047s
sys    0m0.232s

Ok, looks like their code is ok if the childish “eval is evil” warnings are ignored. However what does JavaScript Lint say. Turns out it’s much more interesting:

time jsl -conf /my/bin/jsl.conf -process jslint.js
JavaScript Lint 0.3.0 (JavaScript-C 1.5 2004-09-24)
Developed by Matthias Miller (http://www.JavaScriptLint.com)

jslint.js
/my/bin/jslint.js(32): lint warning: missing break statement for last case in switch
/my/bin/jslint.js(32): lint warning: missing default case in switch statement
/my/bin/jslint.js(33): warning: anonymous function does not always return a value
/my/bin/jslint.js(42): lint warning: missing break statement for last case in switch
/my/bin/jslint.js(43): warning: function string does not always return a value
/my/bin/jslint.js(53): lint warning: regular expressions should be preceded by a left parenthesis, assignment, colon, or comma
/my/bin/jslint.js(59): warning: anonymous function does not always return a value
/my/bin/jslint.js(61): warning: anonymous function does not always return a value
/my/bin/jslint.js(62): lint warning: missing break statement for last case in switch
/my/bin/jslint.js(67): lint warning: use of label
/my/bin/jslint.js(71): lint warning: missing break statement for last case in switch
/my/bin/jslint.js(72): lint warning: missing break statement for last case in switch
/my/bin/jslint.js(72): lint warning: missing default case in switch statement
/my/bin/jslint.js(81): lint warning: missing break statement for last case in switch
/my/bin/jslint.js(81): lint warning: missing default case in switch statement
/my/bin/jslint.js(82): warning: anonymous function does not always return a value
/my/bin/jslint.js(83): warning: anonymous function does not always return a value
/my/bin/jslint.js(86): warning: anonymous function does not always return a value
/my/bin/jslint.js(87): warning: anonymous function does not always return a value
/my/bin/jslint.js(90): warning: anonymous function does not always return a value
/my/bin/jslint.js(90): warning: anonymous function does not always return a value
/my/bin/jslint.js(97): lint warning: missing break statement for last case in switch
/my/bin/jslint.js(97): lint warning: missing default case in switch statement
/my/bin/jslint.js(114): lint warning: missing default case in switch statement
/my/bin/jslint.js(160): warning: anonymous function does not always return a value
/my/bin/jslint.js(166): warning: anonymous function does not always return a value
/my/bin/jslint.js(172): warning: function identifier does not always return a value
/my/bin/jslint.js(184): warning: function statement does not always return a value
/my/bin/jslint.js(185): lint warning: regular expressions should be preceded by a left parenthesis, assignment, colon, or comma
/my/bin/jslint.js(193): lint warning: missing break statement for last case in switch
/my/bin/jslint.js(193): lint warning: missing default case in switch statement
/my/bin/jslint.js(222): lint warning: missing default case in switch statement
/my/bin/jslint.js(222): warning: function cssWidth does not always return a value
/my/bin/jslint.js(229): warning: function cssCommaList does not always return a value
/my/bin/jslint.js(230): lint warning: empty statement or extra semicolon
/my/bin/jslint.js(247): lint warning: missing break statement for last case in switch
/my/bin/jslint.js(248): warning: anonymous function does not always return a value
/my/bin/jslint.js(255): lint warning: missing default case in switch statement
/my/bin/jslint.js(261): warning: function styleValue does not always return a value
/my/bin/jslint.js(280): lint warning: missing break statement for last case in switch
/my/bin/jslint.js(282): warning: function stylePattern does not always return a value
/my/bin/jslint.js(289): lint warning: regular expressions should be preceded by a left parenthesis, assignment, colon, or comma
/my/bin/jslint.js(289): lint warning: regular expressions should be preceded by a left parenthesis, assignment, colon, or comma
/my/bin/jslint.js(293): lint warning: regular expressions should be preceded by a left parenthesis, assignment, colon, or comma
/my/bin/jslint.js(306): lint warning: duplicate case in switch statements
/my/bin/jslint.js(306): lint warning: missing break statement for last case in switch
/my/bin/jslint.js(309): lint warning: missing default case in switch statement
/my/bin/jslint.js(343): lint warning: missing break statement for last case in switch
/my/bin/jslint.js(347): lint warning: missing default case in switch statement
/my/bin/jslint.js(349): lint warning: missing break statement for last case in switch
/my/bin/jslint.js(349): lint warning: missing default case in switch statement
/my/bin/jslint.js(349): lint warning: missing break statement for last case in switch
/my/bin/jslint.js(356): lint warning: missing break statement for last case in switch
/my/bin/jslint.js(399): warning: function functionparams does not always return a value
/my/bin/jslint.js(399): warning: function functionparams does not always return a value
/my/bin/jslint.js(411): lint warning: missing break statement for last case in switch
/my/bin/jslint.js(412): lint warning: missing break statement for last case in switch
/my/bin/jslint.js(414): lint warning: missing break statement for last case in switch
/my/bin/jslint.js(414): lint warning: missing break statement for last case in switch
/my/bin/jslint.js(415): lint warning: missing break statement for last case in switch
/my/bin/jslint.js(424): warning: anonymous function does not always return a value
/my/bin/jslint.js(442): lint warning: missing break statement for last case in switch
/my/bin/jslint.js(452): lint warning: missing break statement for last case in switch
/my/bin/jslint.js(466): lint warning: missing default case in switch statement

0 error(s), 64 warning(s)
real 0m0.083s
user 0m0.068s
sys 0m0.008s

So, kind of neat how jslint.js is a JavaScript file but it appears to be weak, wimpy, and worthless. Meaning it doesn’t catch nearly as many possible problems and it took over 1652 times longer than JavaScript Lint.

However. The website version of jslint is much better. It’s faster and allows various options than it’s CLI version. Still it reported what seemed like spurious errors and miscellaneous information that was just plain confusing if even correct. (It was probably correct but I just didn’t have the desire to figure out what it was going on about.) The options are fun to play with but who wants to cut and paste to a website?

JavaScript Code Coverage On Ubuntu

I’ve been playing with JavaScript looking for QA tools, getting JavaScript Lint in vim on Ubuntu, etc.. Now I’ve got code coverage analysis going for it. Follow these instructions to install JavaScript Code Coverage on Ubuntu:

1. Download from and unpack.
2. Change directory to where it was unpacked:
   
   cd jscoverage-0.4/
3. Configure the environment for Ubuntu:
   
   ./configure
4. Compile the program:
   
   make
5. Copy jscoverage-server to your personal bin:
   
   cp jscoverage-server /my/bin
6. The jscoverage documentation does not mention it but you must start jscoverage-server from the directory where it is to be serving the javascript from. So to run their examples move to the directory where their example code is:
   
   cd jscoverage-0.4/doc/example/
7. Now start up the coverage server from the same directory the javascript is located:
   
   jscoverage-server –verbose
8. Open up a browser where index.html is the starting point of the code you are going to test:
   
   firefox http://127.0.0.1:8080/jscoverage.html?index.html
9. Execute the code a bit and then move to the store tab and press the store button.
10. Open up another browser to view the results:
    
    firefox jscoverage-report/jscoverage.html
11. Possibly open another browser, like opera, and test with it. All the additional tests will be added to the report.
12. Now if you have the directory available via the network test the code with IE.

At this point it’s a simple matter of writing the javascript as a separate library.
Once in a separate library each function can be called separately.
Unit tests can then be written attempting to maximize code coverage and results can be verified.
Once this is done then the user interfaces can be tested.

There are some caveats listed in the manual. They all seem quite acceptable.

1. JSCoverage adds instrumentation to JavaScript code, which will slow down execution speed. Expect instrumented code to take at least twice as much time to run.
2. JSCoverage currently instruments only .js files; it does not instrument code in script elements in HTML files.
3. HTML files must use relative URLs to reference scripts. If you use an absolute URL, your page will reference the original uninstrumented script rather than the instrumented one, and no code coverage data will be collected.
4. JSCoverage instruments physical lines of code rather than logical JavaScript statements; it works bests with code that has exactly one statement per line. If you put multiple statements on a line, or split a line across two or more statements, you may get strange results.
5. JSCoverage uses frames. Some web pages that use frames may not function properly when run under JSCoverage, especially those which try to access the top-level frame (window.top, target=”_top”, etc.).

I don’t see any way of incorporating the results into vim.
It would be nice if that were possible though.
I think the best that can be done would simply be to start a page that would call the various functions with assert statements.
Perhaps via a bash script.
Maybe I’ll learn more when I look into the jsunit tools.
As it now stands all of the error paths are questionable.
Still it’s better than no code coverage.

Upgrading To Ubuntu Jaunty From Intrepid

I just finished upgrading one computer. The boot up process seems much faster but in reality it only dropped from 28 to 21 seconds. I like it. Here are the problems I encountered:

• I had to install pybootchartgui to see the png files. This was not available in the earlier releases of Ubuntu. You got the png files just fine without them. Not a big deal.
• The auto login feature was turned off. Again no big deal. “System->Administration->Login Window” then tab to “Security” and click the check off box for “Enable Automatic Login” and supply the proper user.
• The wireless network is no longer automatically logged into consistently. Actually it’s only worked once out of four boots now. I see the developers claiming it is not a bug and that people must have faulty hardware and such. Same old story with whiny developers. It will probably be taken care of within a week. Until then I have to have a mouse plugged into that machine so I can manually turn on the network and then I can use the regular networked mouse and keyboard through Synergy.
• The first attempt at upgrading failed after about 5 hours. It was half way through. I restarted it and it finished over night. This is the first time an upgrade between Ubuntu versions has worked for me…
• I will probably want to wipe the disk and use ext4 at some point. Maybe on the next release of Ubuntu when the bugs have been worked out by actual people using it.

UPDATE 2009.04.27: I installed Jaunty 32 bit desktop on an old computer this weekend from scratch. (After I got the computer working for him.) It was not obvious to me how to install ext4. So I stuck with ext3. Still it starts in only 19 seconds! The system was snappy and everbody was pleased. I’ve now looked into ext4 and it is not ready for use. According to the official Ubuntu site  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JauntyJackalope/ReleaseNotes#line-145 there are numerous errors with ext4 including hanging when files are deleted, not booting with grub, and possible data losses.

JavaScript Testing

I’m finding my JavaScript code is not behaving as I’d like it to. Code I thought was solid and have been using consistently is less than solid. Code involving money. So it’s time to start rigorously testing things as if I were coding in C/C++. At http://www.opensourcetesting.org/unit_javascript.php is a list of free tools that can help.

1. CrossCheck. It seems to concentrate on verifing the code will run on multiple browsers. Making sure things work on buggy browsers like IE is not big on my list.
2. JavaScript Assertion Unit. Assertion testing. Might be all I need. Probably not though. I don’t want to complicate the code itself. I’d like to have a separate unit supplying the input and comparing it to expected results that can be used by code coverage tests too.
3. JSCoverage. This runs the latest Linux and Firefox distros and looks very promising. It only checks coverage though. Nothing else.
4. JSMock. The documentation is less than clear. I can’t tell if it can be automated, if it runs on Linux, or even what it does. Hopefully it allows test scripts to suppy and perhaps change values within the called functions and compare the results. However if it does do this it does not plainly say it.
5. JSNUnit. A product made for M$ environments. Does not work in Linux.
6. JSUnit. Tests multiple browser javascript on multiple OSs. It looks very promising in that you can write test scripts to run the pages, functions, and possibly even alter values. Hopefully allowing the JSCoverage to run at the same time. I’ll probably start with this tool.
7. JSUnit. I’m not sure how this one differs from the other JSUnit. I’d best compare the two carefully before deciding which one to use.
8. RhinoUnit. It is tied to ANT. It mentions having integrated support for JSLint.
9. JSLint. I’m not sure if this can be run standalone. Perhaps this page will explain it better: http://www.jslint.com/rhino/index.html
10. JavaScript Lint. Hmmm.

Some of the criteria I’m looking for are:

1. Fully Automatable.
2. Speed.
3. Ease.
4. Runs on Linux.
5. Coverage Check.
6. Free.
7. Actively supported.
8. RegEx comparisons.

The Lints are the natural place to start. I’ll somehow make some bash scripts to test them and go from there.

Stripped Google Gears Causing Accidents

Attempting to use Google Gears when it is not installed on a user’s browser causes an error. You’d think their library would handle this more gracefully than just crashing but it doesn’t.
UPDATED 2009.04.04: Their library should define the call but return something akin to an alert warning the user/developer

The crash occurs on this line:

g_db = google.gears.factory.create(‘beta.database’);

I pulled out my “JavaScript The Definitive Guide 5th Edition” looking for how to get around this. (This is my primary reference book for all things JavaScript. Perhaps if I were better at JavaScript it would be second nature but I’m not good at JavaScript so I spend lots of time looking things up.) I figured “google…” was not defined. So I looked at the index and put a paperclip on each page in the book referenced by the index. Then I tried all sorts of combinations none of which would work. Things like:

if (google === undefined) {
alert(“A”);
} else {
alert(“B”);
}

and

if (google == undefined) {
alert(“A”);
} else {
alert(“B”);
}

and

if (“gears” in google) {
alert(“A”);
} else {
alert(“B”);
}

and

if (google) {
alert(“A”);
} else {
alert(“B”);
}

and

if (google.gears) {
alert(“A”);
} else {
alert(“B”);
}

and

if (“length” in google) {
alert(“A”);
} else {
alert(“B”);
}

but none of above worked! There were no other solutions in my reference book. My reference book doth sucketh.

So I used a try/catch for a while but I’d still get an error message in the “error console”. The try/catch is ugly but it let me do what I needed and polluting the error console seems to be acceptable. Everybody does it. Just leave the error console open while browsing the web to see how rampant the pollution is.

However I revisited this problem today. After extensive googling seeing all sorts of “solutions” that were similar to the above and which did not work I happened to find the following:

if (typeof(google) == ‘undefined’) {

I’m using Firefox 3.0.8 if this makes any difference. It’s the very latest version as of this month from Mozilla. I’ve got to remember this solution in the future!

Sorry state of “agrep”…

One very useful tool is “agrep”. Say a customers calls in and they live on “pentrose”. If you had a directory of customers you might be able to do a search for them by typing “agrep -i -2 pentrose *.*”. The “-2″ says find any characters that are off by two or less from “pentrose”. So “Penrose”, “pentroose”, “Pentrous” and “Pentrouse” would all have matched. This is very helpful especially considering google maps and thomas brother maps often spell street names slightly different. Unfortunately the “-l” option telling agrep to list the file names does not work. See the following dump:

/customers$ agrep -V

This is agrep version 3.0, 1994.

/customers$ locate agrep
/usr/bin/agrep
/usr/share/doc/agrep
/usr/share/doc/agrep/README.gz
/usr/share/doc/agrep/agrep.algorithms
/usr/share/doc/agrep/agrep.ps.1.gz
/usr/share/doc/agrep/agrep.ps.2.gz
/usr/share/doc/agrep/changelog.Debian.gz
/usr/share/doc/agrep/changelog.gz
/usr/share/doc/agrep/contribution.list
/usr/share/doc/agrep/copyright
/usr/share/man/man1/agrep.1.gz
/var/cache/apt/archives/agrep_4.17-5_i386.deb
/var/lib/dpkg/info/agrep.list
/var/lib/dpkg/info/agrep.md5sums
/customers$ agrep -il -1  biider *.*html
customer_2401.shtml
*** glibc detected *** agrep: double free or corruption (top): 0x0821bf48 ***
======= Backtrace: =========
/lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6[0xb7e8aa85]
/lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6(cfree+0×90)[0xb7e8e4f0]
agrep[0x804b7df]
agrep[0x805751c]
agrep[0x8055dea]
agrep[0x80571bc]
agrep[0x8057228]
agrep[0x8066519]
/lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xe0)[0xb7e35450]
agrep[0x8048b81]
======= Memory map: ========
08048000-08068000 r-xp 00000000 08:01 6931968    /usr/bin/agrep
08068000-08069000 rw-p 00020000 08:01 6931968    /usr/bin/agrep
08069000-0823a000 rw-p 08069000 00:00 0          [heap]
b7b00000-b7b21000 rw-p b7b00000 00:00 0
b7b21000-b7c00000 —p b7b21000 00:00 0
b7cdf000-b7ce9000 r-xp 00000000 08:01 5744705    /lib/libgcc_s.so.1
b7ce9000-b7cea000 rw-p 0000a000 08:01 5744705    /lib/libgcc_s.so.1
b7cfd000-b7cfe000 rw-p b7cfd000 00:00 0
b7cfe000-b7d3d000 r–p 00000000 08:01 6964092    /usr/lib/locale/en_US.utf8/LC_CTYPE
b7d3d000-b7e1e000 r–p 00000000 08:01 6964091    /usr/lib/locale/en_US.utf8/LC_COLLATE
b7e1e000-b7e1f000 rw-p b7e1e000 00:00 0
b7e1f000-b7f68000 r-xp 00000000 08:01 4252758    /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc-2.7.so
b7f68000-b7f69000 r–p 00149000 08:01 4252758    /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc-2.7.so
b7f69000-b7f6b000 rw-p 0014a000 08:01 4252758    /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc-2.7.so
b7f6b000-b7f6e000 rw-p b7f6b000 00:00 0
b7f70000-b7f71000 r–p 00000000 08:01 6964097    /usr/lib/locale/en_US.utf8/LC_NUMERIC
b7f71000-b7f72000 r–p 00000000 08:01 6964100    /usr/lib/locale/en_US.utf8/LC_TIME
b7f72000-b7f73000 r–p 00000000 08:01 6964095    /usr/lib/locale/en_US.utf8/LC_MONETARY
b7f73000-b7f74000 r–p 00000000 08:01 6971396    /usr/lib/locale/en_US.utf8/LC_MESSAGES/SYS_LC_MESSAGES
b7f74000-b7f75000 r–p 00000000 08:01 6964098    /usr/lib/locale/en_US.utf8/LC_PAPER
b7f75000-b7f76000 r–p 00000000 08:01 6964096    /usr/lib/locale/en_US.utf8/LC_NAME
b7f76000-b7f77000 r–p 00000000 08:01 6964090    /usr/lib/locale/en_US.utf8/LC_ADDRESS
b7f77000-b7f78000 r–p 00000000 08:01 6964099    /usr/lib/locale/en_US.utf8/LC_TELEPHONE
b7f78000-b7f79000 r–p 00000000 08:01 6964094    /usr/lib/locale/en_US.utf8/LC_MEASUREMENT
b7f79000-b7f80000 r–s 00000000 08:01 6947512    /usr/lib/gconv/gconv-modules.cache
b7f80000-b7f81000 r–p 00000000 08:01 6964093    /usr/lib/locale/en_US.utf8/LC_IDENTIFICATION
b7f81000-b7f83000 rw-p b7f81000 00:00 0
b7f83000-b7f84000 r-xp b7f83000 00:00 0          [vdso]
b7f84000-b7f9e000 r-xp 00000000 08:01 5693498    /lib/ld-2.7.so
b7f9e000-b7fa0000 rw-p 00019000 08:01 5693498    /lib/ld-2.7.so
bf89e000-bf8c4000 rw-p bffda000 00:00 0          [stack]
Aborted
customers$

You’d think such a handy utility would be kept up-to-date. Yet it says it is version 3 from 12 years ago. This is not true. The actual version synaptic gives is 4.17-5.

To get around this goofiness and get the documented “-l” option without the core dump use:

/customers$ agrep -i -1 biider *.* | awk ‘{ print $1 }’ | sort | uniq
customer_2401.shtml:
customer_6986.php:
/customers$

I just put it into a script file called “f” so I can simply type “f biider” and view the files…

#!/bin/bash
if [ "1" = "$#" ]; then
time gvim +/$1 $(agrep -1 -i $1 /customers/*.*html /customers/*.php | awk -F”:” ‘{ print $1 }’ | sort -rn | uniq )
elif [ "2" = "$#" ]; then
time gvim +/$1 -n $(agrep -2 -i $2 $(agrep -1 -i $1 /customers/*.*html /customers/*.php | awk -F”:” ‘{ print $1 }’ | sort -rn | uniq) | awk -F”:” ‘{ print $1 }’ | sort -rn | uniq )
else
echo “wrong number of arguments”
fi

agrep is so very useful. Somebody really should fix it. Until then use my workaround.

gvim tips

This post will be updated every time I have to do something in vim taking more than a few seconds to get right. Or when I find interesting reference information I don’t know or forget on a regular basis. The idea is to include everything I do and need with vim in this post.

I prefer using gvim for some reason. Don’t really have a reason I can remember. The useless toolbar on top can be turned off with:

set guioptions-=T

The most useful command in all of vi/vim land I have ever used is the following held within the .vimrc or whatever. It allows the line under the cursor to be executed. With clever useage vi becomes very useful. I’ve used it on all versions of vi for decades.

:map ** “zyy:@z

along with the following that needs to sometimes be modified heavily depending on the version of vi. This allows you to bounce between the two buffers with just a keystroke. (Removing the ability to use the standard ‘;’ for what it was intended for.)

:map ; :e#

When viewing a downloaded google spreadsheet in csv format of all deposits the following displays the summary of each deposit

:g/^\d\{1,3},”\p\{-}”,200

Removes the first 7 words of each line and replaces them with “rm “. Helpful when editing a file made with “ls > file”.

:%s/\(\S\+\s\+\)\{7\}\(.*\)/rm \2 /

Using vim’s internal sort. Start by marking the beginning and ending line with say ‘b’ and ‘e’. (Note the ‘}’ does not help in specifying range unfortunately.) Then type:

:’b,’esort

I’m always forgetting vim’s regexps metacharacters. The following I stole from this excellent guide http://www.geocities.com/volontir/

.	any character except new line
\s	whitespace character
\S	non whitespace character
\d	digit
\D	non-digit
\x	hex digit
\X	non-hex digit
\o	octal digit
\O	non-octal digit
\h	head of word character (a,b,c…z, A,B,C…Z and _)
\H	non-head of word character
\p	printable character
\P	like \p, but excluding digits
\w	word character
\W	non-word character
\a	alphabetic character
\A	non-alphabetic character
\l	lowercase character
\L	non-lowercase character
\u	uppercase character
\U	non-uppercase character

Non-greedy quantifiers where n and m are positive integers (>0):

\{-}	matches 0 or more of the preceding atom, as few as possible
\{-n,m}	matches 1 to m of the preceding characters…
\{-n,}	matches at least 1 or more of the preceding characters…
\{-,m}	matches 1 or more of the preceding characters…

The greedy options have all the obvious non-greedy options plus the semi-obvious extras as follow

\{n}	Matches exactly n characters. It is not greedy or non-greedy.
*	Greedily matches 0 or more of the preceding whatever. “.*” matches everything including an empty line. Notice there is no backslash before the ‘*’
\+	Matches 1 or more of the preceding whatever.
\=	Matches 0 or 1 of the preceding whatever.

There are valuable replacement options:

&	The entire part matched by the pattern.
\1	When 1 is used it is the first pattern. A 0 is the same as the & above and probably makes more sense. I don’t know if two digit numbers can be used or if it stops at 9.
~	The previously substituted string.
\L \U \E \e	Turns upper or lower case on until either of the end control characters are encountered.
\r	Splits the line in two by adding a return character.
\l \u	Makes the next character upper or lower case.