Bash Display – Prevent Showing Vim Text After Exit

displayterminalvim

My question is simple, but I am finding it hard to frame/explain it easily.

I log into several Unix boxes with different accounts. I see 2 different things for user1 and user2, while editing text files in vim

user1

When I type vim filename, vim opens and I edit the file. When I close it, the complete text from the file is gone , and I see the Teminals' command/output that was previously present.

user2

When I type vim filename, vim opens and I edit the file. When I close it, the part of file that was present on the display while I was in vim still shows up at the display, and all the previous Terminal display get's scrolled up. Even if the file was just 1 line, after exiting vim, the display shows the first line, with rest all the ~ and I see the command prompt at the bottom of screen.

Details

$ bash --version
GNU bash, version 3.2.25(1)-release (x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu)
Copyright (C) 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
$ vim --version
VIM - Vi IMproved 7.0 (2006 May 7, compiled Jun 12 2009 07:08:36)

I compared the vimrc files for both users, and I am aware of all the settings, and don't find any setting/config related to this behavior.

Is this behavior related to shell config ? How do I set the things, so that I get the behavior as shown in user1 scenario?

I am not able to describe this easily, also finding it hard to google, as I don't to know what keyword to look for such behavior. Let me know, If I should elaborate further.

Best Answer

One of the reasons for that behaviour will be the setting of the terminal for each user.

For example:

  • User1 is using TERM=xterm, in this case when you exit vim it will clear the terminal.
  • User2 is using TERM=vt100, in this case when you exit vim it will not clear the terminal.

Check what terminal user1 is using with echo $TERM and set the same for user2. for bash:

TERM=xterm; export TERM

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