syntax highlighting in vi

Question

Is syntax highlighting there on vi?. I am sshing to an AIX box via putty in windows xp and using vi. I would like to know if there is syntax highlighting feature in vi.(My google-fu failed as all the results pertaining to vi point to vim). If this exists, Is it possible to get the colors in putty?.(I doubt it though, as sending the color information via ssh would be an additional overhead. ). Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

No, syntax highlighting is a vim extension.

Answer 2

Real vi and its exact clones did not support syntax highlighting. That is the reason why your Google queries all ended at vim, which does support it.

Incidentally, I use vim over ssh all the time and the highlighting information does not impact the usability or screen update speed.