Control the Vim from the edited file

One of the very nice Vim feature I've learnt recently is the possibility of controlling the Vim from a edited file. Chosen Vim commands may to be put in one of the first (specially formatted) file lines. The line format is describe in 'modeline' help keyword (:help modeline). It worth to remember that text before and after main part has to be commenting out directive. Therefore, for example the line in HTML might looks similar to:

<-- vim: set tabstop=4 noexpandtab:-->

for python:

# vim: tabstop=4 noexpandtab:

If you like to learn more please check the modeline keyword in Vim help.

update: I forgot to add that you need to set modeline in .vimrc file.

My first Perl script

It's nothing big, but it's the first one and, as Perl is write only language, I'd better add the short description. The script takes a list of files passed as arguments to the command; reads all lines (http addresses) from them and creates the list of unique domains names.

#!/usr/bin/env perl

%seen = ();
foreach (@ARGV)
{
open (LFILE,"$_");

for $line ()
{
       @sline=split(/\//,$line);
       print ("@sline[2]\n") unless $seen{@sline[2]}++;
}

close LFILE;
}

Perl tutorial from tizag.com was helpful.

DarwinPorts via proxy

Recently, I needed a perl module not present on my MacOSX computer, which was behind a proxy. The friend suggested to use the Darwin ports rather the Perl from Apple. I downloaded and installed it to found I cannot install any port. The problem was due to the combination of using a proxy and the sudo rather then the root user. I guess such combination is rather common among MacOSX-perl users. So below I present the command which allows to use the Darwin ports from a normal MacOSX account. Generally note, you have to export both the RSYNC_PROXY as well as the http_proxy in the sudo environment.

sudo sh -c "export RSYNC_PROXY=proxy.server:port; \
export http_proxy=http://proxy.server:port; \
port install perl5.10 "

How to find the line not starting with "X" in Vim

I don't know why but most of Vim's search examples say nothing about how to find the line not starting with string "X". Finally, I found how to do this. I.e. following line find anything not started from del:

^[^d][^e][^l].*

For people not advance in regex. The consecutive signs means:

• ^ - a line starting with
• [^d] - character other than d;
• [^e] - character other than e;
• [^l] - character other than l;
• .* - any string (any character repeated any times).