[Vim-vms] RE: Help with VIM on VMS/DSM

[Coen Engelbarts]

Hi all,

I found this mail a bit confusing because of the multiple quotes, and I hope
I understand it correctly:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: zoltan.arpadffy at essnet.se [mailto:zoltan.arpadffy at essnet.se]
> Sent: 19 April 2002 09:53
> To: Mario.Macias at med.va.gov
> Cc: vim-vms at polarhome.com
> Subject: [Vim-vms] RE: Help with VIM on VMS/DSM


> > > Unfortunately, this problem is an issue...
> > > actually all interwindow regex related commads has this problem.
> > > Between Vim versions 5.8 and 6.0 OpenVMS specific source 
> > code had been
> > > merged with into Unix one to improve compatibility and > 
> maintenance time
> > > for OpenVMS leaving os_vms.c just a non portable part of 
> > OpenVMS code.
> > > With this solution OpenVMS get automatically all Unix > 
> features and does
> > > not need any VMS specific port for every each 
> improvement, > but it uses
> > > heavily Unix C compatibility library, that, seems to have 
> > some problems on
> > > versions 7.1 and below.

Is this about the fact that vim sometimes crashes? I.e. this problem:

> > > > > "Vim: Caught deadly signal BUS" and VMS session freezes up.

Do I understand correctly that this is caused by bugs in the regex functions
of the Unix compatibility library?

BTW: On my system, the VMS session does not really "freeze up", but the
DECTerm no longer echoes the commands that I type on the DCL prompt.
Everything else, including DCL/program output to terminal, still works.

> > > Vim does not have this behaviour on systems 7.1-2 and above.
> > > on vim-vms list it has been discussed a lot and we 
> decided > (together with
> > > Bram) to leave it as it is.
> > > So, it is a known problem, that will disappear by time as 
> > you upgrade your
> > > OpenVMS environment.

Errmm.. I have a problem with this statement. I see the crashing vim error
on both VMS systems that I use, and they have VMS versions  V7.1-2 and
V7.2-1.
Perhaps "my" systems have an older Unix compatibility library installed?
That would be great, because it would mean I can upgrade the library and get
rid of the crashes! Yay! :-)
What library(ies) are relevant, and what version(s) do I need?
Or perhaps I misunderstood the issue?

Thanks in advance,

Coen