Each time I save (:w) this warning comes up:
E510 can't make backupfile.
/.vimrc includes
set backupdir=/.vim/backups
set dir=/.vim/backups
Those locations exist and I have write permissions to those files.
:verbose set backupdir? says
Last set from ~/.vimrc
I went into the /usr/local/Cellar/macvim/8.0-137/MacVim.app/Contents/Resources/vim directory, made sure I had permissions there in case that was an issue, looked at the vimrc file there and saw nothing about backupdir.
I am tempted to uninstall and reinstall mccvim with home-brew but I am not sure if that will do the job. I prefer not to
set: no backup
but essentially that is what I have now since I can only save with :w!
I have Vim version 8.0 on Mac Sierra 10.12.6
You seem to be confusing / and ~. And a bunch of other things…
The former represents the root of your filesystem, to which you almost certainly not have write privileges if you are not root.
The latter represents your "home" directory, to which you have write privilege. Your "home" can be represented with:
$HOME
~
/Users/username
So, taking your question one part at a time…
Each time I save (:w) this warning comes up:
E510 can't make backupfile.
It means that you can't write to the directory where Vim stores its backup files.
/.vimrc includes
set backupdir=/.vim/backups
set dir=/.vim/backups
Those locations exist and I have write permissions to those files.
You may have a ~/.vimrc (a .vimrc in your "home") but almost certainly not a /.vimrc (a .vimrc at the root of your filesystem).
The right place for your vimrc is either:
~/.vimrc,
~/.vim/vimrc (no dot!).
Your settings tell Vim that it should write backup files in /.vim/backups but there are a few problems with that.
Problems include:
/.vim/ almost certainly doesn't exist,
/.vim/backups/ is therefore very unlikely to exist,
your normal user almost certainly doesn't have the right to write in / anyway.
Assuming the ~/.vim/ directory exists, those options should be:
set backupdir=~/.vim/backups
set dir=~/.vim/backups
:verbose set backupdir? says
Last set from ~/.vimrc
Yeah, no problem here.
I went into the /usr/local/Cellar/macvim/8.0-137/MacVim.app/Contents/Resources/vim directory, made sure I had permissions there in case that was an issue, looked at the vimrc file there and saw nothing about backupdir.
What makes you think anything in Vim's runtime files has anything to do with your issue? Vim told you Last set from ~/.vimrc so there's nowhere else to look.
I am tempted to uninstall and reinstall mccvim with home-brew but I am not sure if that will do the job. I prefer not to
set: no backup
but essentially that is what I have now since I can only save with :w!
Reinstalling MacVim won't change anything. Taking an introductory course on the UNIX shell is definitely a better idea.
Also, did you mean :set nobackup? And I'm not sure "since I can only save with :w" means anything.
Related
I am trying to learn how to use Vim. Apparently I have failed at the first hurdle since Vim (certainly on my computers) cannot open files from within itself. I know this must somehow be a mistake on my part since how can Vim still be around with such a flaw??
Anyway I have searched for the last day or so with no solution.
I have tried:
:e .
And Vim helpfully tells me that: "." is a directory. I was under the impression that this command would open a file browser in current directory, but it doesn't.
Similarly I have attempted other commands:
:Ex
:Explore
:Sexplore
:Sex
:Vexplore
:Vex
:Hexplore
:Hex
I have tested these from How do you open a file from within Vim? but nothing suggested there works.
All of these produce: E492: Not an editor command: <insert any of the above commands here>.
I am left with the conclusion Vim can't open files unless Vim is called from the terminal and the file is passed as an argument or the files happen to be in the current directory (where ever that may be) and you know the file's name.
Can someone help? I would like to be able to open files in other directories and list them but for the life of me nothing is working despite every guide I have read saying it would.
Thanks.
At the request from Zaffy this question has been solved.
At Robby Cornelissen's prompting I checked the MX's Linux's package manager and found that vim-common was installed but weirdly not vim. Once I'd installed vim :e . worked and I can now navigate the filesystem.
I have no idea the difference between vim-common and vim or the reason for the separate packages; Robby Cornelissen suggests that vim-common is probably a minimal or tiny version of vim.
I feel like I've literally tried everything, but no matter what I add to vimrc, I can't get it to store its annoying .swp files in /tmp. I'm using Ubuntu 16.04. I've obviously looked up this issue extensively, but again, no command I enter seems to work. I always end up with:
E510: Can't make backup file
(add ! to override)
Things I've tried:
set backupdir=$~/tmp//
set directory=$~/tmp//
set backupdir=~/tmp//
set backupdir=$HOME~/tmp//
set backupdir=/tmp//
I mean you name it, I've tried it. So, explicitly, what is the exact code I need to type in vimrc to make it so vim saves it's .swp files in my temporary folder, instead of cluttering my workspace?
Thank you.
Adding the following line to my ~/.vimrc puts .swp files for currently open buffers under /tmp
set directory=/tmp
If you've tried this without issues are you able to verify that vim is reading your vimrc at all?
It appears the issue was I didn't really understand what ~ means. I created a folder called 'tmp' in my home directory, and from there used:
set backupdir=~/tmp//
I'm trying to unclutter $HOME, and want to move my .vimrc into ~/.vim. I've already looked at this and this, but none of the solutions presented are what I'm looking for.
I do not want to alias vim with the -u flag because it won't be appropriately set if it is opened in some other way than from the shell.
I do not want to use a symbolic link because it still shows up in $HOME.
I will not compile it from source, I'd rather just use a symlink (which is what I'm currently doing) than deal with that mess.
Can anyone offer some new ideas?
If you are using 7.4, you can simply move your ~/.vimrc file into your ~/.vim/ directory:
~/.vim/vimrc <--- "vimrc", not ".vimrc"
Try this method if you don't use 7.4.
Vim stores the list of commands that we applied using : for the current execution.
But when I close vim and start it again, the vim command history is lost.
I tried set history = 1000 in the .vimrc file but that did not help.
Where does Vim maintain the local command history?
What is the command to retain command history?
Just an issue that caught me out the other day, which may or may not be your problem:
On some Linux systems (e.g. Ubuntu), if the very first time you run VIM, you run it as a super-user, then the $HOME/.viminfo file gets created with root owner and your local user does not have permissions to write to it. This explained why my VIM was not storing command history when it was all configured up correctly.
Bottom line: on a *nix system, locate your .viminfo file, and make sure you have read/write permissions on it.
To check whether Vim supports the 'viminfo' file (which stores the history), :echo has('viminfo'). The corresponding setting must not be empty: :set viminfo?, and :set history? should be greater than one.
If there's a problem writing the viminfo file (though Vim should complain in that case), you could try passing a different location via vim -i /tmp/viminfo
You should check the permissions of the .viminfo file. You might need to change owner of the file to your current user using chown or sudo chown.
Mr. Baint has given the answer.
Go to $HOME directory.
give ls -l .viminfo to check permissions.
change permission so that group and owner also can have write
permission. use:
sudo chown yourUserId $HOME/.viminfo
It should fix the issue.
You will have to set the viminfo option. Set it in your $MYVIMRC
Update To find out where the option was last set/changed:
:verbose set viminfo?
See http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/starting.html#viminfo-file
If you exit Vim and later start it again, you would normally lose a lot of
information. The viminfo file can be used to remember that information, which
enables you to continue where you left off.
This is introduced in section |21.3| of the user manual.
The viminfo file is used to store:
The command line history.
The search string history.
The input-line history.
Contents of non-empty registers.
Marks for several files.
File marks, pointing to locations in files.
Last search/substitute pattern (for 'n' and '&').
The buffer list.
Global variables.
The viminfo file is not supported when the |+viminfo| feature has been
disabled at compile time.
You could also use Session files.
I went round in circles on this one a bit on Ubuntu and set viminfo solutions proposed above resulted in errors.
I eventually did the command "version" in the command mode and it came back with "-" for most stuff including:
-cmdline_hist
-cmdline_info
I ran the following command and it all worked fine again:
sudo apt install vim
I had the same problem. The issue was that I had vim-minimal installed (this is a default with Fedora), which does not support history. I had to uninstall it and install the full vim instead. I now have history... and syntaxic coloration !
If you are using a vimrc file, check your folders and files for existence and correctness
set history=200
set undolevels=128
set undodir=~/.vim/undodir/
set undofile
set undolevels=1000
set undoreload=10000
If the specified folder (undodir in my case) does not exist, the history will not be saved.
In Vim, is it possible to change the default location of the user vimrc file, i.e., from $HOME/.vimrc to some other location ?
Another solution might be to create a symlink to you preferred location. I have my .vimrc in $HOME/.vim/.vimrc and symlink to it. This way I can have it in a git repo and backup it.
You must start vim with the command vim -u ./path/to/your/vimrcfile
vim -u NONE is a good way to start Vim without any plugin or customisation.
See :help starting.txt for more information.
The VIMINIT variable is my preferred method. The problem with aliasing vim with the -u flag is that if vim is opened in some way other than from the shell command your configuration won't get pulled in. Setting $VIMINIT does not suffer from this drawback. Check this out for more information.
export VIMINIT='source $MYVIMRC'
export MYVIMRC='~/.vim/vimrc' #or any other location you want
Note that Vim normally sets the MYVIMRC variable, though I'm not sure exactly what it's used for. Based on my testing, using VIMINIT in this fashion will result in it not being automatically set on startup as it would normally be. This is why I'm setting it myself.
This works for neovim too!
On Windows, I have the _vimrc that's in my home directory contain one line, source c:\path\to\my.vimrc.
I have not yet worked out a good way to move the entirety of my vimfiles folder, but that's less critical as it's all stuff I've installed from elsewhere. I.e., it'd be easy to restore if I lost it. (I know that I can change runtimepath but my problem is more coming up with a "good" way to do so.)
Update
After six years I extended slightly from what I mention in the comments below; as I put stuff into 'after' and wanted to just keep rtp clean I got something that has been solid for a while now. Today in my %USERPROFILE%\_vimrc I do hardcode the actual paths to things and it changes on every machine I use (and I basically do the same thing on *nix) but this gets copied around mostly-manually when setting up a new PC. I also have a version which I can use to launch Vim on another connected machine on the network, e.g. a co-worker's machine, so I get my config and all that, but the gist is:
set runtimepath^=E:/dotfiles/vim
set runtimepath+=E:/dotfiles/vim/after
set runtimepath-=~/vimfiles
set runtimepath-=~/vimfiles/after
runtime vimrc
and then %USERPROFILE%\_gvimrc just has one line:
runtime gvimrc
(Both vimrc and gvimrc are in the /dotfiles/vim folder and also on Bitbucket.)
I see two options, depending on your needs.
Have ~/.vimrc import the other location
create an alias in your bashrc alias vim="vim -u otherlocation"
I edited
C:\Program Files\Vim\_vimrc
and changed both the runtimepath and sourced my own .vimrc.
I also use these settings in Cygwin (and have them version controlled). So it's this in practice (added at the bottom of the _vimrc file):
let &runtimepath = 'C:\cygwin\home\cygwinaccount\.vim,' . &runtimepath
source C:\cygwin\home\cygwinaccount\.vimrc
Bliss ! :)
In linux:
You can edit .bashrc or .zshrc startup script and add the following lines to change the default location of .vimrc file
export VIMINIT='source $MYVIMRC'
export MYVIMRC='~/.vim/.vimrc' # Note the . (dot) before vimrc. If that is what you have called it.
I feel like the simplest solution is to just have a single line in ~/.vimrc that loads the vimrc from the other location, i.e.:
source PATH/TO/OTHER/LOCATION/.vimrc