nvi2

In #openbsd what is called #vi is actually #nvi, and when you install #nvi from ports, it is #nvi2.
To danes with our national characters æøå we need the latter because #vi prints two byte hex sequences for æ, ø, or å. #vi handles them correctly except for the printing of them.
#vi and #nvi use the same #man page.

Update:
On #netbsd #vi is also #nvi. Here you must install #nvi2 to get #nvi if you need æ, ø, and å support.

Best wishes from T. R. Dane (The Real Dane ;)

I submitted a Pull Request to update MacPorts' nvi2 to 2.2.2 here:

https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/pull/32625

GitHub Continuous Integration checks passed OK!

It's up to someone else to merge it.

This rabbit hole brought to you by: https://lpar.ath0.com/posts/2026/05/the-vi-family/ (which I think I encountered via lobste.rs ?) and has me thinking: maybe I should create a MacPorts' Portfile for OpenVi (https://github.com/johnsonjh/OpenVi) but apparently: OpenVi lacks UTF-8 support. ;( nvi2 doesn't fail in such regards, and there was already a MacPort (just with no maintainer and so many months out of date) and interestingly: it looks as if at least one OpenBSD developer (namely: Todd C. Miller) may have contributed code to nvi2? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The genealogy of vi and its various off shoots is vast. I lament that I only created a MacPort for em (editor for mortals, a predecessor to vi) too late for its original author to know of its existence. ;(

#nvi2 #MacPorts #vi #editors #OpenSource

Interestingly, #FreeBSD comes with #nvi2 in base, while #OpenBSD and #NetBSD seem to be running #nvi 1:

FreeBSD 14.3-RELEASE-p12~~~Version 2.2.2 (2025-10-08) The CSRG, University of California, Berkeley.

OpenBSD 7.3(7.9 is still running the same version)~~~Version 1.79 (10/23/96) The CSRG, University of California, Berkeley.

NetBSD 10.1~~~Version (1.81.6-2013-11-20nb4) The CSRG, University of California, Berkeley.

They all seem to have nvi2 available as packages, though, which #Debian, oddly, does not.

rld@Intrepid:~$ uname -srFreeBSD 14.3-RELEASE-p12rld@Intrepid:~$ pkg search nvi |grep '^nvi2'nvi2-2.2.2 Updated implementation of the ex/vi text editorrld@Intrepid:~$

#(searching openbsd online)rld@Intrepid:~$ searchall -o nvi |grep ^nvinvi-2.2.2 (list) with wide and files limited bynvi-2.2.2-iconv (list) with wide and files limited by

rldane@rosa.tilde.pink$ uname -srNetBSD 10.1rldane@rosa.tilde.pink$ pkgin search nvi |grep ^nvi |grep -v nvidianvi-1.81.6nb13 Berkeley nvi with additional featuresnvi-m17n-1.79.20040608nb11 Clone of vi/ex, with multilingual patchnvi2-2.2.0 Multibyte fork of the nvi editor for BSDrldane@rosa.tilde.pink$

~ $ head -1 /etc/os-release PRETTY_NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie)"~ $ apt-cache search nvi |grep -E '^nvi2? 'nvi - 4.4BSD re-implementation of vi~ $