*BSD News Article 12025


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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!wupost!csus.edu!netcom.com!alm
From: alm@netcom.com (Andrew Moore)
Subject: Re: 386bsd -- HELP elvis dies on large input files (>2MB
Message-ID: <1993Feb28.235844.2747@netcom.com>
Keywords: elvis dies help problem
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
References: <138@knobel.GUN.de> <1mqqprINNq7l@life.ai.mit.edu>
Date: Sun, 28 Feb 1993 23:58:44 GMT
Lines: 25

In article <1mqqprINNq7l@life.ai.mit.edu> mycroft@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Charles Hannum) writes:
>
>In article <138@knobel.GUN.de> andreas@knobel.GUN.de (Andreas Klemm) writes:
>>
>> My elvis dies on large files.
>> I tried to edit a text of 2 MB size.
>> Elvis says after a while
>>	  error reading back from tmp file
>
>This usually means there wasn't enough room for the temporary file.
>Try making /var larger.

No, this is a limitation of elvis.  From the elvis-1.6 document,
cflags.ms:

The value of BLKSIZE must be a power of two.  Every time you double
BLKSIZE, you quadruple the size of a text file that [elvis] can handle,
[...]
The default value is 2048, which allows you to edit files that
are nearly 2 megabytes long.
[...]
BLKSIZE should be either 256, 512, 1024, or 2048.  Values
other than these can lead to strange behaviour.
---- End of Quote ----
-Andrew Moore <alm@netcom.com>