listing non-comment lines

scbops · 09-18-2007, 01:49 AM

In vi editor how can I list out the lines without stating from #

bigrigdriver · 09-18-2007, 06:34 AM

In vi command mode, you can filter vi output through some external application (the filter).

The command syntax would begin like this:
:!gawk or :!sed, followed by the gawk or sed script to filter out lines beginning with #.

I'm don't use gawk or sed enough to be able to tell you the entire command to use. I hope this points you in the direction of a solution.

gilead · 09-18-2007, 07:07 AM

If you just want to highlight lines that don't start with '#' in vi, use:

Code:

/^[^#].*$

If you want to use sed, you could do this:

Code:

sed -en '/^[^\#]/p' /path/to/file

choogendyk · 09-18-2007, 08:13 AM

Simplest:

Gilead's vi will work, but you don't need the .*$

Just /^[^#] and then n (next) to go on through successive lines (or shift n to go backwords). This is what I do all the time when editing .conf files, because they often have so many comments.

If you are just looking for non comment lines and don't need to do any editing (just a real quick, "are there any" or "what are they"), use grep and maybe more if there are lots of them.

$ grep '^[^#]' blah.conf | more

gilead · 09-18-2007, 01:50 PM

To just find the lines that don't start with '#' choogendyk is correct, just /^[^#] will do. As I said though, if you want to highlight the lines, adding the match for the rest of the line and using /^[^#].*$ gives an easier to see display (depending on your vi's colour settings).

choogendyk · 09-18-2007, 08:55 PM

I guess I'm just kind of old fashioned when it comes to Unix/Linux. Color display vi and GUI kind of stuff just aren't in it for me. I don't get highlights. I just want my cursor to land at the right location. My fingers naturally follow the vi navigation keys. They do it even on the command line in ksh. In many of the original video games (the old asteroids for example), the navigation keys were the same as vi.