From: Johannes Thyssen Tishman <jtt@openbsd.org>
Subject: ksh: allow editing empty line with 'v' in vi-mode
To: tech@openbsd.org
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2026 18:21:29 +0000

Sometimes, when I know I'm gonna write a long command, I like to use vi
mode's 'v' function to edit the command in my editor. Currently this
only works to modify a command, i.e., when the command line is not
empty, e.g.:

  $ abcd^[v     --> Opens editor with 'abcd'

Because of this, I've now acquired the (bad) habit of typing nonsense
before using this function, such that I can start writing the command
from scratch in the editor. The diff below allows using this function
with an empty command line:

  $ ^[v         --> Opens empty editor

I tried adding tests, e.g., by setting VISUAL=cat and HISTFILE=`mktemp
...`, but I couldn't get them to work. However, both the examples above,
as well as when passing a number from the command history (see fc -l),
e.g.,

  $ ^[10v       --> Opens 10th command in history

are still working fine.

Index: vi.c
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvs/src/bin/ksh/vi.c,v
diff -u -p -r1.70 vi.c
--- vi.c	22 May 2026 18:11:08 -0000	1.70
+++ vi.c	30 Jul 2026 18:05:10 -0000
@@ -964,8 +964,6 @@ vi_cmd(int argcnt, const char *cmd)
 			break;
 
 		case 'v':
-			if (es->linelen == 0 && argcnt == 0)
-				return -1;
 			if (!argcnt) {
 				if (modified) {
 					es->cbuf[es->linelen] = '\0';