Fix arrow keys displaying A, B, C, D in vi (not in vim)

Question

I know that in vim I can add

set nocompatible

in .vimrc to avoid that arrow keys display A, B, C, D in insert mode.

But I'm using vi Version 4.0 (gritter) 12/25/06.

How can I obtain the same behavior?

== EDIT == (1)

I'm using the vi version from Arch Linux which is built from this CVS repository (last commit 24 February 2007) with the following command:

make PREFIX=/usr LIBEXECDIR=/usr/lib/ex PRESERVEDIR=/var/lib/ex \
TERMLIB=ncurses FEATURES="-DCHDIR -DFASTTAG -DUCVISUAL -DMB -DBIT8"

and with theses three patches: fix-tubesize-short-overflow.patch, navkeys.patch and preserve-dir.patch.

== EDIT (2)==

The problems happens in LXTerminal 0.2.0, Termite 10-1, Tilda 1.2.4-1, Terminator 0.98-1 and xterm 320-2 but not in urxvt v9.21 nor in the Linux virtual consoles.

== EDIT (3)==

According to the Single Unix Specification left-arrow, down-arrow, right-arrow, up-arrow correspond to respectively the following capname : kcub1, kcud1, kcuf1 and kcuu1. Comparing terminfo entries from xterm and rxvt-unicode-256color for these capterms gives:

$ infocmp xterm rxvt-unicode-256color | grep -E 'kcuf1|kcub1|kcud1|kcuu1'

kcub1: '\EOD', '\E[D'.
kcud1: '\EOB', '\E[B'.
kcuf1: '\EOC', '\E[C'.
kcuu1: '\EOA', '\E[A'.

Modifying the xterm terminfo entry by substituing '\EOD', '\EOB', '\EOC', '\EOA' by '\E[D', '\E[B', '\E[C', '\E[A' should solve the problem but is it a good idea? Maybe it will break other programs arrow keys usage?

Answer 1

You could create an alias that sets your $TERM variable

alias vi='TERM=rxvt-unicode-256color vi'

Add that to your shell's rc file and it should be defined for every terminal you launch.

Answer 2

Sometimes such behaviour can result from unusual key mappings setup in your .vimrc - so for example if you have something that maps two ESC key presses:

nmap <Esc><Esc> some_command_sequence

Then it can lead to vim malfunctioning with the arrow keys.

Answer 3

The true fix is to use Command mode for movement, not Insert mode. The behavior you are seeing is not a bug, but proper vi/POSIX behavior. You are trying to change something you are telling it to do on purpose.

You are telling vi to Insert the characters represented by the arrow keys, so it does.

Press ESC to get back into Command mode and then you can probably use the arrow keys as desired, including the count functions. Using a modal editor like vi as if it is Windows notepad (mode-less) will never teach you the power and flexibility of vi.

If you don't want to learn vi, then maybe consider nano or mg / emacs. They are mode-less also.