-1

I would like to know what is the maximum size that an vim or emacs editore can open & edit

Bala
  • 19
  • 1
  • 6

2 Answers2

3

The documentation just states this:

Maximum file size 2147483647 bytes (2 Gbyte) when a long integer is 32 bits. Much more for 64 bit longs. Also limited by available disk space for the |swap-file|.

so "much more" will most likely run into your hard drive limitation since it goes to exabytes of alocatable size.

lcd047
  • 5,731
  • 2
  • 28
  • 38
Anatch
  • 443
  • 1
  • 5
  • 20
-1

For Emacs the size of a buffer (which a file needs to fit into) is dependent on the max size of an integer (which it uses to stores position locations). This is system dependent. On a 32 bit system, you can hit it. On a 64bit system, in practice, you are unlikely to (i.e. it's terabytes). If you do hit it, then you are likely to have other problems.

There is a package (vlf) which supports editing very large files, which works by virtue of not opening the whole file all at once, with a controllable chunk size.

Phil Lord
  • 2,917
  • 1
  • 20
  • 31
  • Emacs, yes, vim don't know. If you have a very large .tgz file as you are implying, direct editing is going to perform badly. What are you actually trying to do? It would help if you said, rather than ask orthogonal questions about editors. – Phil Lord Jun 16 '15 at 20:14
  • Hi Phil, Just in case anytime in future want to refer and make changes without extracting file. – Bala Jun 17 '15 at 17:07