0fde6aebdd
As reported in #16559, bytes of a multibyte character may be written as separate U+FFFD characters in a ":terminal" window on a busy machine. The testing facilities currently offer an optional filtering step to be carried out between reading and comparing the contents of two screendump files for each such file. This filtering has been resorted to (#14767 and #16560) in an attempt to unconditionally replace known non-Latin-1 characters with an arbitrary substitute ASCII character and avoid this rendering mishap leading to syntax tests failures. However, it has been overlooked at the time that metadata description (in shorthand) to follow spurious U+FFFD characters may be *distinct* and make the remainder of such a line, ASCII characters and whatnot, also unequal between compared screendump files. While it is straightforward to adapt current filter files to ignore the line characters after the leftmost U+FFFD, > It is challenging and error-prone to keep up to date filter > files because moving around examples in source files will > likely make redundant some previously required filter files > and, at the same time, it may require creating new filter > files for the same source file; substituting one multibyte > character for another multibyte character will also demand > a coordinated change for filter files. Besides, unconditionally dropping arbitrary parts of a line is rather too blunt an instrument. An alternative approach is to not use the supported filtering for this purpose; let a syntax test pass or fail initially; then *if* the same failure is imminent, drop the leftmost U+FFFD and the rest of the previously seen line (repeating it for all previously seen unequal lines) before another round of file contents comparing. The obvious disadvantage with this filtering, unconditional and otherwise, is that if there are consistent failures for _other reasons_ and the unequal parts happen to be after U+FFFDs, then spurious test passing can happen when stars align for _a particular test runner_. Hence syntax test authors should strive to write as little significant text after multibyte characters as syntactically permissible, write multibyte characters closer to EOL in general, and make sure that their checked-in and published "*.dump" files do not have any U+FFFDs. It is also practical to refrain from attempting screendump generation if U+FFFDs can already be discovered, and instead try re-running from scratch the syntax test in hand, while accepting other recently generated screendumps without going through with new rounds of verification. Reference: https://github.com/vim/vim/pull/16470#issuecomment-2599848525 closes: #17704 Signed-off-by: Aliaksei Budavei <0x000c70@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Christian Brabandt <cb@256bit.org>
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What is Vim?
Vim is a greatly improved version of the good old UNIX editor
Vi. Many new
features have been added: multi-level undo, syntax highlighting, command line
history, on-line help, spell checking, filename completion, block operations,
script language, etc. There is also a Graphical User Interface (GUI)
available. Still, Vi compatibility is maintained, those who have Vi "in the
fingers" will feel at home.
See runtime/doc/vi_diff.txt for differences with
Vi.
This editor is very useful for editing programs and other plain text files. All commands are given with normal keyboard characters, so those who can type with ten fingers can work very fast. Additionally, function keys can be mapped to commands by the user, and the mouse can be used.
Vim also aims to provide a (mostly) POSIX-compatible vi implementation, when compiled with a minimal feature set (typically called vim.tiny), which is used by many Linux distributions as the default vi editor.
Vim runs under MS-Windows (7, 8, 10, 11), macOS, Haiku, VMS and almost all flavours of UNIX. Porting to other systems should not be very difficult. Older versions of Vim run on MS-DOS, MS-Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/Vista, Amiga DOS, Atari MiNT, BeOS, RISC OS and OS/2. These are no longer maintained.
For Vim9 script see README_VIM9.
Distribution
You can often use your favorite package manager to install Vim. On Mac and Linux a small version of Vim is pre-installed, you still need to install Vim if you want more features.
There are separate distributions for Unix, PC, Amiga and some other systems.
This README.md file comes with the runtime archive. It includes the
documentation, syntax files and other files that are used at runtime. To run
Vim you must get either one of the binary archives or a source archive.
Which one you need depends on the system you want to run it on and whether you
want or must compile it yourself. Check https://www.vim.org/download.php for
an overview of currently available distributions.
Some popular places to get the latest Vim:
- Check out the git repository from GitHub.
- Get the source code as an archive.
- Get a Windows executable from the vim-win32-installer repository.
Compiling
If you obtained a binary distribution you don't need to compile Vim. If you
obtained a source distribution, all the stuff for compiling Vim is in the
src directory. See src/INSTALL for instructions.
Installation
See one of these files for system-specific instructions. Either in the READMEdir directory (in the repository) or the top directory (if you unpack an archive):
README_ami.txt Amiga
README_unix.txt Unix
README_dos.txt MS-DOS and MS-Windows
README_mac.txt Macintosh
README_haiku.txt Haiku
README_vms.txt VMS
There are other README_*.txt files, depending on the distribution you used.
Documentation
The Vim tutor is a one hour training course for beginners. Often it can be
started as vimtutor. See :help tutor for more information.
The best is to use :help in Vim. If you don't have an executable yet, read
runtime/doc/help.txt.
It contains pointers to the other documentation files.
The User Manual reads like a book and is recommended to learn to use
Vim. See :help user-manual.
Copying
Vim is Charityware. You can use and copy it as much as you like, but you are
encouraged to make a donation to help orphans in Uganda. Please read the file
runtime/doc/uganda.txt
for details (do :help uganda inside Vim).
Summary of the license: There are no restrictions on using or distributing an unmodified copy of Vim. Parts of Vim may also be distributed, but the license text must always be included. For modified versions, a few restrictions apply. The license is GPL compatible, you may compile Vim with GPL libraries and distribute it.
Sponsoring
Fixing bugs and adding new features takes a lot of time and effort. To show your appreciation for the work and motivate developers to continue working on Vim please send a donation.
The money you donated will be mainly used to help children in Uganda. See
runtime/doc/uganda.txt. But at the same time
donations increase the development team motivation to keep working on Vim!
For the most recent information about sponsoring look on the Vim web site: https://www.vim.org/sponsor/
Contributing
If you would like to help make Vim better, see the CONTRIBUTING.md file.
Information
If you are on macOS, you can use MacVim.
The latest news about Vim can be found on the Vim home page: https://www.vim.org/
If you have problems, have a look at the Vim documentation or tips: https://www.vim.org/docs.php https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Vim_Tips_Wiki
If you still have problems or any other questions, use one of the mailing lists to discuss them with Vim users and developers: https://www.vim.org/maillist.php
If nothing else works, report bugs directly to the vim-dev mailing list:
<vim-dev@vim.org>
Main author
Most of Vim was created by Bram Moolenaar <Bram@vim.org>
Bram-Moolenaar
Send any other comments, patches, flowers and suggestions to the vim-dev mailing list:
<vim-dev@vim.org>
This is README.md for version 9.1 of Vim: Vi IMproved.