I'm trying to override 'w' in vim so it would call an external program and filter the buffer instead of writing to a file. There are very good examples across the internet about how to do that. I tried one from vim.wikia.com, but vim always complains with E488: Trailing characters. This is the command in my vimrc:
cabbrev w <c-r>=(getcmdtype()==':' && getcmdpos()==1 ? 'W' : 'w')<CR>
I'm not very familiar with vim script. I tried removing <CR> from the end of the line with no luck.
UPDATE
Since I want to run vim as customized as possible I run it with the -u flag. I noticed that vim behaves differently when using that flag compared to running it without it
With the -u flag the expanded abbreviation is what needs to be evaluated as code.
Without the flag, the abbreviation is what it is intended to be (here I enter the cabbrev rule from vim's prompt)
Regarding the -u flag vim's man page says this:
-u {vimrc} Use the commands in the file {vimrc} for
initializations. All the other initializations
are skipped. Use this to edit a special kind of files. It can also be used to skip all
initializations by giving the name "NONE". See ":help initialization" within vim for more
details.
Apparently when this flag is used the initialization from
vim /etc/vimrc is not performed and there I found this option:
set nocompatible
vim's help about compatible option:
This option has the effect of making Vim either more Vi-compatible, or
make Vim behave in a more useful way. This is a special kind of
option, because when it's set or reset, other options are also changed
as a side effect. CAREFUL: Setting or resetting this option can have
a lot of unexpected effects: Mappings are interpreted in another way,
undo behaves differently, etc. If you set this option in your vimrc
file, you should probably put it at the very start.
...
When a vimrc or gvimrc file is found while Vim is starting up,
this option is switched off, and all options that have not been
modified will be set to the Vim defaults. Effectively, this means
that when a vimrc or gvimrc file exists, Vim will use the Vim
defaults, otherwise it will use the Vi defaults. (Note: This doesn't
happen for the system-wide vimrc or gvimrc file, nor for a file given
with the -u argument).
set nocompatible makes the cabbrev syntax from the question work
I have a $HOME/.vimrc file which I have configured for many options like below but not limited to.
set foldmethod=indent
set foldnestmax=10
set mouse=a
set number
These all work fine if I open a file with vim however if I open with vi or view the file none of the config work, which is fine but I get errors for some.
line 104:
E538: No mouse support: mouse=a
line 205:
E518: Unknown option: foldmethod=indent
Press ENTER or type command to continue
After searching quite a while I was able to remove some of these.
if has('mouse')
set mouse=a
endif
silent! set foldmethod=indent
However this is just suppressing them. And the linenumbers are still being displayed with vi or view which look pretty bad and many people login to the box will be suddenly mystified by the yellow line numbers.
How to make vi not take up these config.
I powerbroker to the linux box. Can I make .vimrc setting just for me.
vi and vim are the same executable.
I'd suggest you change the name of your vimrc:
$ mv ~/.vimrc ~/.myvimrc
and start Vim with:
$ vim -Nu ~/.myvimrc
You could add an alias to ~/.bashrc (or whatever works in that system) to ease your workflow:
alias myvim='/usr/bin/vim -Nu ~/.myvimrc'
As vi does not support all options of vim, What I do is to set alias for vi to vim in my rc file
alias vim='vim -p'
alias vi='vim -p'
The -p is not really required. but I kinda like tabbing enabled by default on vim. So every time, if you hit vi or vim, it behaves the same.
You can make this permanent, if you like, by adding the lines to ~/.bashrc, assuming you are using bash. You need to source ~/.bashrc to take immediate effect without logging off.
I have 2 .vimrc configuration files ~/.vimrc and ~/.vimsqlrc.
Is there a way I can source either of them (switch from one to another) while I have some files already opened?
As an extension, how do I turn off the loading of vimrc (i.e, don't use any vimrc) while I have files open?
Your ~/.vimrc is read and executed only once. If you want to nullify it with another file, you'll have to change the value of every single option and unmap every single mapping in, of course, both files. This sounds like a very bad and unnecessarily complex idea.
If you want another environment, just use another environment:
$ vim <-- starts Vim normally, reading ~/.vimrc
$ vim -u ~/.vimsqlrc <-- starts Vim using your alternative vimrc
$ vim -u NONE <-- starts Vim without any vimrc
$ vim -u NORC <-- starts Vim without any vimrc, but with plugins
but I'm afraid you'll have to stop and restart Vim for that.
Anyway, your question has a very strong XY problem smell. Do you want to have specific settings for *.sql files?
If that's your goal, you can put your settings in ~/.vim/after/ftplugin/sql.vim like this:
setlocal autoindent
nnoremap <buffer> <F6> :echo "F6"<CR>
Using setlocal for options and <buffer> for mappings ensures that your settings are only applied for *.sql files.
By default Vim is looking for plugins and other stuff in ~/.vim.
Is there any way to tell Vim to search for plugins, etc. in ~/.other_folder and force it to ignore ~/.vim entirely?
Vim uses the comma-separated paths from 'runtimepath' to determine where to look for :runtime'd files.
You can change that option either in ~/.vimrc (which is sourced as the very first script), or by passing the set rtp=... commands on Vim's command-line via --cmd (the commands passed with -c are only applied after startup).
So I work in a PHP shop, and we all use different editors, and we all have to work on Windows. I use vim, and everyone in the shop keeps complaining that whenever I edit a file there is a newline at the bottom. I've searched around and found that this is a documented behavior of vi & vim... but I was wondering if there was some way to disable this feature. (It would be best if I could disable it for specific file extensions).
If anyone knows about this, that would be great!
And for vim 7.4+ you can use (preferably on your .vimrc) (thanks to 罗泽轩 for that last bit of news!):
:set nofixendofline
Now regarding older versions of vim.
Even if the file was already saved with new lines at the end:
vim -b file
and once in vim:
:set noeol
:wq
done.
alternatively you can open files in vim with :e ++bin file
Yet another alternative:
:set binary
:set noeol
:wq
see more details at Why do I need vim in binary mode for 'noeol' to work?
Add the following command to your .vimrc to turn of the end-of-line option:
autocmd FileType php setlocal noeol binary fileformat=dos
However, PHP itself will ignore that last end-of-line - it shouldn't be an issue. I am almost certain that in your case there is something else which is adding the last newline character, or possibly there is a mixup with windows/unix line ending types (\n or \r\n, etc).
Update:
An alternative solution might be to just add this line to your .vimrc:
set fileformats+=dos
There is another way to approach this if you are using Git for source control. Inspired by an answer here, I wrote my own filter for use in a gitattributes file.
To install this filter, save it as noeol_filter somewhere in your $PATH, make it executable, and run the following commands:
git config --global filter.noeol.clean noeol_filter
git config --global filter.noeol.smudge cat
To start using the filter only for yourself, put the following line in your $GIT_DIR/info/attributes:
*.php filter=noeol
This will make sure you do not commit any newline at eof in a .php file, no matter what Vim does.
And now, the script itself:
#!/usr/bin/python
# a filter that strips newline from last line of its stdin
# if the last line is empty, leave it as-is, to make the operation idempotent
# inspired by: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1654021/how-can-i-delete-a-newline-if-it-is-the-last-character-in-a-file/1663283#1663283
import sys
if __name__ == '__main__':
try:
pline = sys.stdin.next()
except StopIteration:
# no input, nothing to do
sys.exit(0)
# spit out all but the last line
for line in sys.stdin:
sys.stdout.write(pline)
pline = line
# strip newline from last line before spitting it out
if len(pline) > 2 and pline.endswith("\r\n"):
sys.stdout.write(pline[:-2])
elif len(pline) > 1 and pline.endswith("\n"):
sys.stdout.write(pline[:-1])
else:
sys.stdout.write(pline)
I have not tried this option, but the following information is given in the vim help system (i.e. help eol):
'endofline' 'eol' boolean (default on)
local to buffer
{not in Vi}
When writing a file and this option is off and the 'binary' option
is on, no <EOL> will be written for the last line in the file. This
option is automatically set when starting to edit a new file, unless
the file does not have an <EOL> for the last line in the file, in
which case it is reset.
Normally you don't have to set or
reset this option. When 'binary' is
off the value is not used when writing
the file. When 'binary' is on it is
used to remember the presence of a
for the last line in the file,
so that when you write the file the
situation from the original file can
be kept. But you can change it if you
want to.
You may be interested in the answer to a previous question as well: "Why should files end with a newline".
I've added a tip on the Vim wiki for a similar (though different) problem:
http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Do_not_auto-add_a_newline_at_EOF
OK, you being on Windows complicates things ;)
As the 'binary' option resets the 'fileformat' option (and writing with 'binary' set always writes with unix line endings), let's take out the big hammer and do it externally!
How about defining an autocommand (:help autocommand) for the BufWritePost event? This autocommand is executed after every time you write a whole buffer. In this autocommand call a small external tool (php, perl or whatever script) that strips off the last newline of the just written file.
So this would look something like this and would go into your .vimrc file:
autocmd! "Remove all autocmds (for current group), see below"
autocmd BufWritePost *.php !your-script <afile>
Be sure to read the whole vim documentation about autocommands if this is your first time dealing with autocommands. There are some caveats, e.g. it's recommended to remove all autocmds in your .vimrc in case your .vimrc might get sourced multiple times.
I've implemented Blixtor's suggestions with Perl and Python post-processing, either running inside Vim (if it is compiled with such language support), or via an external Perl script. It's available as the PreserveNoEOL plugin on vim.org.
Starting with vim v7.4 you can use
:set nofixendofline
There is some information about that change here: http://ftp.vim.org/vim/patches/7.4/7.4.785 .
Maybe you could look at why they are complaining. If a php file has a newline after the ending ?>, php will output it as part of the page. This is not a problem unless you try to send headers after the file is included.
However, the ?> at the end of a php file is optional. No ending ?>, no problem with a newline at the end of the file.
Try to add in .vimrc
set binary
I think I've found a better solution than the accepted answer. The alternative solutions weren't working for me and I didn't want to have to work in binary mode all the time.
Fortunately this seems to get the job done and I haven't encountered any nasty side-effects yet: preserve missing end-of-line at end of text files. I just added the whole thing to my ~/.vimrc.
Would it be possible for you to use a special command for saving these files?
If you do :set binary, :w and :set nobinary the file will be written without newline if there was none to start with.
This sequence of commands could be put into a user defined command or a mapping, of course.
I found this vimscript plugin is helpful for this situation.
Plugin 'vim-scripts/PreserveNoEOL'
Or read more at github