RE: vi globally append question

["David Turetsky" <davidturetsky@earthlink.net>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sean [mailto:hesselroad@yahoo.com] 
> Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2004 9:49 AM
> To: debian-user
> Subject: vi globally append question
> 
> hi all,
> 
> i have a file like;
> 
> #
> one
> 123
> 
> and i would like to APPEND a # at the beginning of
> each line which is not started with a # . how can i do
> it with vi or ed, so far, i 've tried;
> 
> :%s/^[a-z]:[0-9]/#/g
> 
> but this would CHANGE the first character of each line
> to a hash, pls help.
> 
> thks in advance.
> 
> 

Try something like:

  %g!/^#/s/^/#/

My notation may be a bit screwed up, but this approach should do it

-- 
David