Editing Nvi (section)

==Credits and distribution==
nvi was written by [[Keith Bostic (software engineer)|Keith Bostic]]. It is the default [[vi (text editor)|vi]] on all major [[BSD]] systems ([[NetBSD]], [[OpenBSD]], and [[FreeBSD]]) as well as [[MINIX]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://git.minix3.org/?p=minix.git;a=commit;h=3e1db26a5a6252fcff0898d4cb0c3fa16ccf561d|title=Termcap update, replacing elvis by nvi.|author=Lionel Sambuc}}</ref>

It was originally derived from the first incarnation of [[Elvis (text editor)|elvis]], written by Steve Kirkendall, as noted in the README file included in nvi's sources.

Sven Verdoolaege added support for [[Unicode]] in 2000.<ref>{{cite web |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20010501133542/http://www.kotnet.org/~skimo/nvi/commitlog |url=http://www.kotnet.org/~skimo/nvi/commitlog |archivedate=May 1, 2001 |title=nvi commitlog}}</ref>  He also has been developing a [[GTK+]] front end for nvi, but this effort seems to have stalled. The aspects of nvi that are still marked preliminary or unimplemented are, for the time being, likely to remain that way.

[[BSD]] projects continue to use nvi version 1.79 due to licensing differences between [[Berkeley DB|Berkeley Database]] 1.85 and the later versions by [[Sleepycat Software]].  nvi is unusual because it uses a database to store the text as it is being edited. Sven Verdoolaege's changes after version 1.79 use locking features not available in the Berkeley DB 1.85 database. Reportedly, changes to nvi after 1.79 make it less [[vi (text editor)|vi]]-compatible.{{Citation needed|date=August 2007}}

nvi can vary subtly across the [[BSD]]s.

nvi is only available on [[POSIX]]/Unix platforms due to its reliance on the [[curses (programming library)|curses]]/[[ncurses]] library.<ref>{{citation |url=http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html#uses_of_library |title=NCURSES &ndash; Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) |section=Types of library users |author=Thomas E. Dickey |accessdate=July 11, 2014}}</ref>

An unmaintained, multilingual version by the late Jun-ichiro itojun Hagino is available as nvi-m17n.
<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.usenix.org/events/usenix99/full_papers/hagino/hagino.ps|title=Multilingual vi clones: past, now and the future|author=Jun-ichiro itojun Hagino and Yoshitaka Tokugawa}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/459 |title=The Man in the Machine |author=Federico Biancuzzi |publisher=SecurityFocus |date=December 4, 2007 }}</ref>

A currently-maintained, multibyte version is available as nvi2, and is the default vi on [[DragonFly BSD]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://github.com/lichray/nvi2|title=nvi2 git repo|author=Zhihao Yuan|website=[[GitHub]] |date=17 November 2022 }}</ref>