Bug 88169 - gvim forks on startup, causing numerous problems
Summary: gvim forks on startup, causing numerous problems
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Linux
Classification: Retired
Component: vim
Version: 9
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
low
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Karsten Hopp
QA Contact: David Lawrence
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks: 84794
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2003-04-07 11:45 UTC by Martin Norback
Modified: 2007-04-18 16:52 UTC (History)
0 users

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2003-04-07 12:22:29 UTC
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Martin Norback 2003-04-07 11:45:32 UTC
From Bugzilla Helper:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.3) Gecko/20030313

Description of problem:
WHen gvim starts up, it forks. This leads to problems when you've set gvim as
your EDITOR or VISUAL.

This is documented behavior, but it's still inconvenient, especially for a new
user, that doesn't know this.

The result is that a number of programs that use the EDITOR variable fail in
mysterious ways, because gvim forks, and the program thinks the editor is done.

Proposed fix:

Add
set guioptions+=f
to the system vimrc file that is shipped with Red Hat Linux. There are some
other good settings there already.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
vim-common-6.1-29

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Set EDITOR to gvim
2. Run a command that invokes EDITOR, for instance cvs commit    

Actual Results:  The commit fails with: "Log message unchanged or not specified"

Expected Results:  CVS should wait until the editor is done, but doesn't because
the editor forks.

Additional info:

I've contacted the maintainer of gvim, he said this is the desired behavior. I
disagree, if you really want gvim to fork on startup, you can use the standard
method and put an & after the command.

Comment 1 Karsten Hopp 2003-04-07 12:22:29 UTC
Other users are expecting this gvim behaviour from previous releases and I can't make the 
requested change to the vimrc and to the documentation. 
Please change your EDITOR setting to "gvim -f" or edit your 
/usr/share/vim/vim61/macros/vimrc if you want to change this for every user on your machine. 

Comment 2 Martin Norback 2003-04-07 12:42:58 UTC
Please reconsider, I can't think of one single occasion where the default
behavior is the best one. I know that a lot of users has been bitten by this bug
though.

I know how to fix it, so it's not a problem for me (anymore).

Now that more and more people use gvim, they are sure to fall into this bug.
Gvim is even a standard option in "Preferred programs", which sets the default
editor to "gvim", not "gvim -f".

If I get this fixed upstream, can you at least promise to let that change go
through?

Comment 3 Karsten Hopp 2003-04-07 12:52:48 UTC
I intend to stay as close as possible to the upstream version.  
If you manage to convince Bram Moldenaar to change this upstream, I'll include his patch. 


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