Tuesday, October 15, 2019

restore ^h to be the same as backspace in insert mode

Hello fellow vimmers!

I've been a happy vim user on Unix and later Linux since the vim 3.0 days (approximately 25 years!).  I was on the vim mailing list for years, but dropped off when it moved to Google Groups in 2007.  Vim has worked so comfortably and reliably for me that I haven't had any questions that couldn't be answered with a quick web search.

However, a recent OS update has changed vim behavior that I've relied on for years, and I'm really struggling with how to restore the previous behavior.

Specifically, in insert mode, the behavior I've used for ages is that both control-h and backspace do the same thing: move the cursor 1 character to the left and then delete the character under the new cursor position.

Since the update, though, the backspace key continues to do that (move 1 left & delete) in insert mode, but control-h instead now deletes the character to the right.  This has the unfortunate effect that when I'm at the end of a line of text in insert mode, if muscle memory has me press control-h with the intent of moving left and deleting the character, what I instead get is the removal of the newline after the cursor and the next line becomes joined to the current line.

How do I restore the previous behavior?

This changed (broke) after a round of OS updates.  The updates included ncurses, vim, and other components, so it's not going to be easy to isolate which component is responsible for the change.

Before the update, I was using vim 8.1.1002, after the update I'm on vim 8.1.1721

The .vimrc that I've been using for the past 15 or more years looks like:

set nobackup
set ts=4 noai nohlsearch magic beautify nowrapscan wrapmargin=1
:au VimEnter pico* set tw=74 spell spelllang=en_us
:au VimEnter pico* set wrap
:au VimEnter cvs* set tw=74
:au VimEnter cvs* set wrap
:au VimEnter *.py set ts=4 expandtab sm
:au VimEnter *.pl set modeline ts=4 sm


I tried adding :fixdel based on some web searches, but that didn't solve the issue.  Both my control-h and backspace key are recognized just fine, it's just that now control h behavior is different than it was previously.

When I'm not in vim, for example when I'm just typing at the shell (bash 5.0.11) command line, both control-h and backspace do the "move left and delete" action I would expect.  stty reports:

$ stty -a
speed
9600 baud;
rows
= 41; columns = 80; ypixels = 0; xpixels = 0;
csdata UTF
-8
eucw
1:0:0:0, scrw 1:0:0:0
intr
= ^c; quit = ^\; erase = ^?; erase2 = ^h; kill = ^u;
eof
= ^d; eol = <undef>; eol2 = <undef>; swtch = <undef>;
start
= ^q; stop = ^s; susp = ^z; dsusp = ^y;
rprnt
= ^r; flush = ^o; werase = ^w; lnext = ^v;
status
= ^t;
-parenb -parodd cs8 -cstopb -hupcl cread -clocal -loblk -crtscts -crtsxoff -parext
-ignbrk brkint -ignpar -parmrk -inpck -istrip -inlcr -igncr icrnl -iuclc
ixon
-ixany -ixoff imaxbel
isig icanon
-xcase echo echoe echok -echonl -noflsh
-tostop echoctl -echoprt echoke -defecho -flusho -pendin iexten
opost
-olcuc onlcr -ocrnl -onocr -onlret -ofill -ofdel tab3




Anyone have any suggestions for what I can set to get the old behavior back?

If there's additional informatio I can provide, please let me know!

Thanks!

Tim

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