Odd behavior of backspace in Vim (SSH to Linux from Mac)

Question

I didn't change any setting of my Vim, but today the Backspace gets some crazy behavior. Every time when I hit it, it does not delete a character, but prints ^?. Anyone knows what is going on?

What OS? Whst do you have in your .vimrc (can you put it down somewhere?) — Rook, Jan 13 '12 at 02:50
Try to remove all the plugins and `.vimrc` and then look again to Backspace behavior. Is it changed? If yes, then you can at least find the reason by method of exclusion. — Dmitry Frank, Jan 13 '12 at 09:02
@ldigas I login to Linux from a Mac via Terminal. `.vimrc` actually sources from a standard vimrc of my company. There is no recent change for this `.vimrc` source. @dimonomid Thank you! I just took it out. Still no luck. This may tell me that this problem may not come from the linux terminal. — Grace Huang, Jan 13 '12 at 17:04
Ok I logged to the Linux box directly and the vim worked just fine. That means the problem comes from the communication between the Mac and the Linux. — Grace Huang, Jan 13 '12 at 17:11

score 20 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 13 '12 at 01:02

20

Not sure why it would randomly start doing this based on the information you gave, but trying adding this line to your .vimrc

set backspace=start,eol,indent

answered Jan 13 '12 at 01:02

Paul Simpson

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I have tried this, and it does not work. :( Thank you though! – Grace Huang Jan 13 '12 at 01:09
1

Are you using vim on a local machine or over a remote connection? – Paul Simpson Jan 13 '12 at 01:10
over a remote connection. Does it matter? – Grace Huang Jan 13 '12 at 01:14
Try the suggestions in the `:fixdel` section of the vim docs: http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/options.html#:fixdel – Paul Simpson Jan 13 '12 at 02:03
I also tried this. This makes Backspace work like Delete, which is not what I want. – Grace Huang Jan 13 '12 at 05:16
This worked for me. I was having problems with backspace in vim when I was ssh'ing from mac to raspberry pi. – AGS May 09 '13 at 01:34

score 16 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 13 '12 at 17:27

16

The problem comes from the communication between Mac Terminal the Linux Terminal.

Go to the Mac Terminal -> Preferences -> Advanced tab, check the option "Delete sends Ctrl-H". Then after I login to Linux, and Backspace works just fine in Vim.

answered Jan 13 '12 at 17:27

Grace Huang

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Awesome. Though I wonder why it works sometimes even this setting. – Nawaz Jun 22 '17 at 06:41

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 09 '15 at 21:45

0

In Mac Mavricks and Yosemite Open a terminal, then command+, for preferences, click on the profile tab, click on the -keyboard- menu, then add +

Key: very bottom, <= Delete
Modifier: ^ Control
Action: Send Text
Text: H

click Ok

answered Dec 09 '15 at 21:45

ppostma1

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Odd behavior of backspace in Vim (SSH to Linux from Mac)

3 Answers3

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