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Apologies if this is duplicate. I have searched and haven't found any related questions.
What is the difference between the options readonly and nowrite? The reference manual says:
readonly: If on, writes fail unless you use a '!'. Protects you from
accidentally overwriting a file.write: Allows writing files. When not set, writing a file is not allowed.From these definitions, readonly and nowrite seem synonymous to me.
Thanks in advance!
The primary difference is that readonly is per-buffer and write is global to vim.
readonly is generally used when editing specific files that you do not have access to write (like /etc/fstab). Any buffer can be set to readonly if you want to prevent accidentally writing it to file.
nowrite can be used to put vim into view-only mode, like pager utilities more or less, except temporary edits to the buffer are still allowed.
