I wish Vim internally supported nul (00) line endings,
but alas.
You might be able to set up a before/after filter, much like
the gzip example (":help gzip-example"), using tr, of the form
tr '\000\012' '\012\000'
This will swap all NUL characters in the file and 0x0A
(octal 012) characters. Vim can then interpret the file
normally with the NUL characters as the line-breaks. Then,
before writing the file, pipe it through the same "tr"
command to reswap your null bytes and your place-holder
character.
You don't have to use a LF/0x0A as your alternate byte...as
a matter of fact, it might be best to use a character that
doesn't occur anywhere in your source file, and that Vim
isn't likely to have conniptions about. I'd adjust accordingly.
Just a few ideas for how to make Vim use NUL characters as
line delimiters :)
-tim
