Sys 5.3 vi file-size limit?

[Bill Vermillion]

In article <1991Jan17.130822.27543 at eagle.lerc.nasa.gov> fsfrick at bones.UUCP (David Fricker) writes:
>In article <447 at minya.UUCP> jc at minya.UUCP (John Chambers) writes:
>>Does anyone know if it's possible to do something about vi's absurdly
>>small file-size limit?  
 
>My guess is that your problem is not vi but your filesystem.  vi creates
>temporary files such as the file for the recover option, etc.  In rough
>terms, the temporary files are 4-5 times the size of the original file.
 
>Double check the amount of free disk space that you have.  The various
>systems I use tend to put the temporary files under /tmp or /usr/tmp.

Some systems are distributed with a vi that will NOT let you edit large
files.  I am running Esix 5.2.D, and just tested with a large file.  It
gives a  tmp file too large error.  I wrote that out and found that the
file was 445k long.   I then re-edited the file with vi from a Xenix
system (they sit side by side here), and it swallowed the whole file, all
66k+ lines 3.2 megs.

Same hardware, just two different versions of vi.   I had this limit in the
past when working on some old Motorola 68000 and Zilog Z8000 based systems,
but this should NOT be acceptable in the iNTEL '386 based world.


-- 
Bill Vermillion - UUCP: uunet!tarpit!bilver!bill
                      : bill at bilver.UUCP