Re: OT: xargs & vi

[Eric G.Miller <egm2@jps.net>]

On Wed, 9 Jan 2002 22:11:56 +0100, martin f krafft <madduck@madduck.net> wrote:

[snip]
> any form of 'vim -' will read the data to be edited from stdin, not the
> filenames, so it's not appropriate.
> 
> and even though i swear it worked,
> 
>   command | vim
> 
> just dies with
> 
> Vim: Warning: Input is not from a terminal
> Vim: Error reading input, exiting...
> Vim: Finished.

Look.  Vim, or any other text based program needs to "talk" to the
terminal. If you put it at the end of a pipe, the program is essentially
run in the background without access to the terminal.  Vim sees that, 
and quits.  It's the sensible thing to do.  So, don't invoke it that way.

$ vim $(subshell program returning a list of filenames)

-- 
Eric G. Miller <egm2@jps.net>