Thuban writes: > Default vi (nvi) in OpenBSD doesn't handle correctly most of UTF-8 > sings such as "é", "à" or so. One need to install nvi package to do so. > Is it planned to replace the vi binary in the future? > Is there any reason I can't think to keep this vi version?
nvi2's main deficiency is that it cannot handle invalid characters at all: they interfere with display, searching, and writing. This is a big change from base nvi which merely visually escapes non-ASCII characters. In the past nvi2 has also had some pretty severe bugs including frequent crashes and irreversible file truncation on :w which makes me wary of bringing it in. UTF-8 in OpenBSD's base vi is definitely a desired feature. The primary blocker to implementing it is simply that nobody has done the work.
