I am going through some logs written by a program that normally just logs to the console. Since it outputs to bash, I see a bunch of characters which are used for coloring in bash.
Is there any text editor out there that can interpret these character sequences and display the lines in color as bash does? Would be nice to be able to search through these logs without seeing a bunch of otherwise garbage characters.
If you don't want to use an editor you could use:
echo -e $(cat colorfile)
less -r colorfile
Or use vim addon AnsiEsc:
Download the AnsiEsc.vba.gz vim scripts file from (https://www.vim.org/scripts/download_script.php?src_id=14498)
Install details:
Open the AnsiEsc.vba.gz vim-scripts file in vim:
vim AnsiEsc.vba.gz
:so %
:q
Then open your file with vim and type
:AnsiEsc
Related
Using Cygwin, I tried creating and editing a file in Vim:
touch test | vim
This is obviously a mistake; something like vim "$(touch test)" has a better chance of actually working. Nevertheless, this command throws the error:
Vim: Warning: Input is not from a terminal.
And after this, Vim opens and I exit the program with :q. Any subsequent commands I enter into the terminal are hidden from view until I restart Cygwin.
Why is this?
You don't understand what does a pipe | do in shell.
Pipe will take the pervious command's stdout as stdin to next command, in a subshell.
Your touch foo doesn't generate any output, what do you expect to happen? same for vim "$(touch test)".
If you want to create a file and open it in vim in one shot, you can try:
touch foo && vim foo
If you want to edit it with vim anyway, actually, you can simply just:
vim foo
then save the buffer after your editing.
I want to script vim to edit files from the command line. For example I want to do something along the lines of:
vim -<SOME_OPTION> 'Iworld<Esc>bIhello <Esc>:wq helloworld.txt<CR>'
or:
echo 'Iworld<Esc>bIhello <Esc>:wq helloworld.txt<CR>' | vim
and have it save the file helloworld.txt with a body of hello world
Is this possible? I've tried a few different approaches but none seem to do it. I realize I can do things like vim +PluginInstall to run Ex commands from the command line, but I'd love to be able to string together arbitrary motions
This can be achieved with the + flag and the :normal command:
$ vim +"norm Iworld" +"norm Ihello " +"wq helloworld.txt"
I think what you are looking for is vim's -w/W and -s {scriptin} option. Well in your case you should make a scriptfile, and with -s file to let vim execute all your "key presses"
I think vimgolf has used these options too.
I have to make a script using vim which opens a file, set the fileformat=unix, and then save the file and exit. Could you please help? Thanks
First, check out whether you have a dos2unix or dos2ux command; it already does this for you.
With Vim, this should do the job:
$ vim -c "wq ++ff=unix" filename
This one in-lines the fileformat change with the :w command; of course, you can also do this separately via -c "set ff=unix".
Notes
You can also do this via a variety of tools, e.g. sed, perl, ...; Vim is a quite heavyweight alternative.
This still starts up a full, interactive Vim instance. Have a look at this answer which additional command-line arguments can turn Vim into batch mode.
I use vim regularily for all my needs. On very rare occasions I need to open binary files via a hex editor look, and for that I start vim on the file and then run it through xxd via the command: %!xxd
My question is, how can I have my command line open a file directly in this manner, if the option exists? something like typing: gvimbin <file> and then it opens in the right manner.
Edit: to be clear, I am looking for a complete solution that allows running vim exec commands on startup.
You can execute commands after Vim startup by passing them via -c:
$ gvim -c '%!xxd' file.bin
This can even be simplified so that when Vim is started in binary mode (-b argument), it'll automatically convert the file. Put the following into your ~/.vimrc:
if &binary
%!xxd
endif
and start with:
$ gvim -b file.bin
Also have a look at the hexman.vim - Simpler Hex viewing and editing plugin; it makes it easier to deal with hexdumps.
Like Felix say:
xxd <file> | vim -
You can put this into script for example vimxxd:
#!/bin/sh
xxd $1 | vim -
and use like: vimxxd file.txt
I want to use the Vim to see the result of history (not in the shell). I think history | vim will work (use the result of history as the input of vim), but it returns with:
$history | vim
Vim: Warning: Input is not from a terminal
Vim: Error reading input, exiting...
Vim: Finished.
Can anybody explain this?
By piping into vim, you are changing the standard input stream. Because vim is an interactive program, it requires the standard input to be the console.
If you want to view in vim, you should tell it you are reading the file from stdin (by supplying the argument -):
history | vim -
Alternatively, you could just use more or less:
history | more
history | less
These latter two are preferable. If you pipe into vim, it will see your "file" as having modifications, and so you can't quit with a straight :q command. Instead you have to force quit by :q!, which is a bit clunky.
On the other hand, you can exit more or less just by typing q. Have a look at the man-page for these two programs. You'll use them a lot.
As recommended by Russell Silva in the comments, you can open vim in read-only mode when you read from stdin. Just supply the -R argument. Then you can quit normally without needing the override:
history | vim -R -
Apart of vim -, you may try bash command substitution like:
vim <(history)
See also:
How to write whole buffer to standard output from the command line? at Vim SE
How to edit files non-interactively (e.g. in pipeline)? at Vim SE
This happend to me trying to send it to background console (&)
One script used:
...
vi "$file" &
...
# change to just:
vi "$file"
removing &, problem went away.