How to open a very large file vi

First and foremost, vi cannot open a file larger than your /tmp directory as it uses /tmp as default open directory.

What choice do you have?

1. You could make sure your /tmp directory has enough space.
2. If above is not possible and you have some other directory that has the needed space you can make vi use that. How do you do that? Follow the steps below -
   1. vi my_temp_file
   2. se directory=/mynewdictory/withspace
   3. e my_actual_large_file

You got it. We first fool vi by opening a brand new temporary file. Alter its default directory setting and then edit the actual file without exiting in between.

By: Java  1578 days ago