I did th3 follwing: With a program, which generates random
numbers in different formats, I created a file, which consists
of _one_ line of 2097152 characters ("0"-"9","A"-"F").
To split the line into lines of 72 characters each, I started
vim and let it read the file.
I postioned the cursor at position 0 and entered the following
in normal mode:
qq72<right>i<return><esc>0q
Then I did a
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
After only 10 or 15 (guessed) executions of the macro the
system freezes while constantly swapping (?) and became
unuseable and did no longer respond.
While I don't know what went hooey on your machine, a couple ideas:
1) turn off syntax highlighting. Vim seems to wheeze when
syntax-highlighting long lines.
2) To split the line like you describe, you might try
:s/.\{72}/&\r/g
(adjust the 72 for the number of characters you want on each
line). I don't know if it's any faster, but it can hardly be
worse ;)
3) you might try cranking back your 'undolevels'. I'm not sure
it would help a great deal, but if the other two don't have a
deep impact, it might help.
HTH,
-tim
