Editing (vi) large files in Solaris
When editing extremely large files using vi
the following message may appear when you open it:
Not enough space in /var/tmp
The default directory /var/tmp is used for the vi
editing buffer and needs space equal to roughly twice the size of the file which you are working on, because vi
uses extra lines for buffer manipulation.
Resolution
We can use the following steps to edit your large file without receiving the above error message:
- open vi
- set the buffering directory
- edit your large file
For example:
$ vi :set directory=/tmp :e filename
Replace /tmp
with any directory containing enough space for use as the vi buffer. Replace filename
is the name of your large file.