I have been driven crazy for years with Vim's behavior of throwing away input characters. I start vim like this:
$ vim file.c
and then immediately begin typing commands. However, Vim discards some of those characters, causing the wrong action to take place.
Is there something we can put in the .vimrc to solve this issue?
Vim should be able to change the TTY to raw mode without flushing buffered input.
Update: the issue is more precisely characterized, thanks to the following investigation method. I created a script called delayvim which contains:
#!/bin/sh
sleep 2.0
vim "$#"
Now during this two second pause I can type something like iabc<ESC> and then when Vim comes up, everything is cool: the command is processed, abc is inserted and Vim pops back into command mode, with the cursor backed up over the c. Thus, it is not simply flushing the TTY input buffer.
However, if I keep typing during this delay, for instance iabcdefghijk..., it will sometimes lose a letter or two of the alphabet that is typed right around the time when the sleep terminates and the editor launches. For instance, here is the result of one trial I just performed:
abcdefghilmn_
~
~
Where are jk, oops? I am sure I typed them. I didn't type very fast; my cadence was around 4-5 strokes per second, yet two consecutive events disappeared.
Basically, it might be trying to interrogate the terminal, and in the process discarding the input that is mixed up in the response. Or it could be a combination of reading some of the prior input, then flushing the input buffer and losing the rest.
2 points that might help:
1) are you being sure to hit i first, to enter input mode, so that all characters you type afterward should go ahead and be seen in your buffer (on the screen?). Otherwise the letters you type will be processed as commands, which will often do nothing, especially if you're starting an empty file.
Note that a and o are other common commands for telling vim that you are about to begin inserting text starting with the next keystroke.
2) In case the reason on your system has to do with speed, you can look for options to change what happens at startup. For example, if you put this in your .vimrc file
autocmd VimEnter * :sleep 5
Then after processing other startup files, vim or gvim will literally do nothing for 5 seconds before showing your file on the screen. On my system, I was able to type iabcdef during those 5 seconds and when the time was up, I did see abcdef entered into my text file.
If your file was not empty, beware, as (depending on your settings) your vim installation might be kindly returning you to the last place you were editing inside the file, and you will have inserted the text there, instead of at the start.
If this doesn't work, you could try to find other things vim can do (on the web, or using :help from within vim) and program it using autocmd to happen at startup to see if it helps.
Related
A long file paths is broken up over multiple lines in the Vim quickfix window which then for example does not allow to jump to the error location displayed in the qf.
The file (and the lines around) are diplayed in the quickfix window as (the example is the output from neomakes pdflatex)
|| Enter file name:
|| /long/path/to/file/.../loca
tionOfTexFiles/myTexFile.tex|144 error| Emergency stop.
|| read
to be able to follow to the file line by lnext/cnext I should have
/long/path/to/file/.../locationOfTexFiles/myTexFile.tex|144 error| Emergency stop.
For quickfix files I have the following relevant (in my view) settings which are set to:
setlocal nolinebreak
setlocal nowrap
setlocal textwidth=9999
So I am wondering how I can display the file path in one line within the quickfix window?
On :make, Vim invokes 'makeprg', captures the output, and then parses it according to 'errorformat'. The latter does support multi-line error messages (cp. :help errorformat-multi-line), but that is mostly for what I would call intentional linebreaks, as specified by the compiler. What you suffer from is unintentional linebreaks because of line wrapping (due to overly long paths).
Now, I don't know about "neomakes pdflatex", but it looks like that tool creates the linebreaks, whereas it shouldn't, as Vim is capturing the output, and there's no receiving terminal (or user). Investigating in that direction (or opening an issue at the project's tracker) might be helpful.
The mentioned Vim options ('linebreak', 'wrap', etc.) have nothing to do with it. They apply to normal buffers; the quickfix buffer as such is not modifiable.
Workarounds
A possible workaround might be to :cd first to a directory that is "closer" to the processed files (or even :set autochdir); this might avoid the long paths in the output.
Alternatively, you may "unmangle" the output by adding a sed stage after the compiler:
let &makeprg .= "| sed -e 's/.../...'"
If I'm not mistaken, the issue is on pdflatex side. The || mark is a good indication: you'll have one per output line -- in case filename and/or lines numbers are recognized, they'll be fed in between the bars.
So. This means you'll need a way to fix the path names. It'll be better to do it outside vim. I'm not saying this is trivial. I'm just saying that if you can have a program able to fix pdflatex outputs, you'll just be one pipe away from the solution (plus a correct forwarding of error codes...).
If you prefer to implement it in vim script, this is possible. But you'll experience side-effects. In my BuildToolsWrapper plugin I'm able to post-process compilation output in vim side, but the result is far from being perfect. I'm working on getqflist() result, and parse each line. When I found a line where I want to fix the filename, it's not simply about fixing the filename but also about assigning a valid buffer number to it. See this function where I can replace a filename with another one. The magic happens where lh#buffer#get_nr() is used. Still you'd need to implement a vim script able to merge split filenames.
IOW: my understanding is that vim is not involved. It could be used to fix the issue, but IMO this is not the easier path to undertake.
i have Vim with plugin vim-go and neocomplete, when o move the cursor from left to right in insert mode this happens
Note: this only happens with go code and vim-go required binaries (such as gocode, godef, goimports, etc..)
someone have same problem?
i am running Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS 64bits with Kernel 3.13.0-48 Vim 7.4.52 with lua support
thanks in advance
It looks as if you are using gnome-terminal or konsole.
When you use cursor-keys to move around in insert-mode, the keys send escape sequences. In particular, if you happen to press the shift- or control-keys, those can send different escape sequences (with numbers), possibly with semicolons to separate the numbers. There are some limitations on vim's handling strings of that sort, and in some cases (see this discussion) it will get confused and stop interpreting the string, leaving junk on the screen.
The root of the problem is that in vi, the program (mis)uses the escape character for two different reasons:
a special "command" character sent by the user to the editor
the first character in the strings sent by most special keys to an application (including an editor).
The latter requires the program (vim) to wait "a while" to determine which case to use. If you are using a slow machine (or a slow connection) and your keyboard-repeat is fast, that defeats vim's attempt to distinguish the two cases. Likewise, your plugins send many characters to the screen for each keystroke, making vim slower.
It is aggravated by modified keys (using shift- or control-modifiers) since xterm and other terminals encode that information as a number. gnome-terminal and konsole use an older variant of xterm's (see xterm FAQ How can I use shift- or control-modifiers?) which is more easily mistaken by vim as not being an escape sequence.
If it is only a matter of timing, then moving your cursor more slowly would avoid the problem (agreeing that is only a workaround). You can gauge the amount of output done by vim by running it in script to capture the output into a typescript file. I do that to analyze bugs, by sending the data back to the terminal more slowly. Some of those typescript files are surprisingly large, for the little apparent work done.
I changed from neocomplete to YouCompleteMe, the random characters is not showing anymore.
I have a file where I store snippets of vim commands. When I need a snippet, I yank it and then execute it with #". The snippets are stored as a script, one line per command, like this:
:s/foo/bar/g
:echo "hello"
:s/1/2/g
Edit: I removed normal mode commands from the example, as they were not part of the problem.
Now this procedure doesn't work anymore: when executing the snippet, it just stops at the first line as if waiting for a newline.
Is there an option somewhere affecting how # is executed? I'm pretty sure it was working some time ago...
Substituting the newline with a ^M character works but makes the file more difficult to handle.
Additional information:
Here's another symptom: when I yank a snippet, if I execute it with #" it stops at the first line as I just explained. But if I execute it with :# it works. But the help file doesn't seem to imply any difference in how the two commands treat the register's content...
I don't think the problem is ^M vs. ^J. Vim macros will treat either one as a valid end-of-line character for recorded macros. I think the problem is extra newlines.
In your example, there's at least one spurious newline after 2j, and unless you're particularly careful when copying the snippet, there's probably another one after 10k as well. These extra newlines are like pressing <Enter> in Normal mode -- they move the cursor down one line.
Here's what I think you want the snippet to look like:
:s/foo/bar/g
2j:s/1/2/g
10k
(Even that's a little misleading -- you'd still have to be careful not to copy the newline after the 10k.)
Why do these extra newlines make such a big difference? Well, for one thing, they cause you to be at least one line away from where you expect to be, which throws off anything you want to do on a particular line (like execute the :s// command).
More importantly, however -- and this is what I think is happening in your example -- is that Vim stops macro playback if the macro attempts to use <Enter> on the last line of a buffer. (I'm guessing Vim considers it an error, and any error causes a macro to stop running.)
Here's an example. Suppose you've got this snippet stored in register x:
4j
:echo "Done"
(Notice the newline after 4j.)
Furthermore, suppose you have the following five lines (and only these five lines) in a buffer:
line 1
line 2
line 3
line 4
line 5
If you now press #x on line 1, the :echo "Done" never executes. Vim moves the cursor down 4 lines to line 5, then attempts to move down one more line because of the extra newline, but it can't. The macro stops executing at that point, before the :echo command gets a chance to run.
However, it works if you change the x register to this:
4j:echo "Done"
So to return to your original example, I'll bet what's happening is that the extra newline after 2j is attempting to move your cursor somewhere it can't go, and that causes the macro to stop. The bottom line of the screen contains the last command executed (:s/foo/bar/g), which makes it look like Vim is waiting for you to press Return.
Finally, I'd strongly recommend using another method to store and execute Vim command sequences. The technique you're using is tolerable for simple cases, but it's fragile and doesn't scale well. Vim has a full scripting language that includes functions and custom commands, and it can be used to do all the things you're doing now, but in a much more robust fashion. Vim scripting is a big topic, but I'd start here:
:help script
Be sure to read about the :normal command, which lets you execute Normal-mode commands (like 2j and 10k) within scripts.
Good luck!
I finally found the culprit. Somehow I had a command mapping on <C-J> in my .vimrc file. When read with the default cpoptions, this turned into a mapping on <NL>.
How I found out: I noticed that when starting vim with -u ~/.vimrc, it would indeed execute yanked snippets. I generated a session file with and without that commandline option and compared them. This way I found out that a different set of cpoptions where used to read the same .vimrc file, so that in one case the mapping was indeed on <C-J>, in the other it was converted into a mapping on <NL>!
If someone has a similar problem, I suggest to look carefully at the currently set command mappings, with :cmap.
Is it possible to reset the alternate buffer in a vim session to what it was previously?
By alternate buffer, I mean the one that is referred to by #, i.e. the one that is displayed when you enter cntl-^.
Say I've got two files open main.c and other.c and :ls gives me:
1 %a "main.c" lines 27
2 # "other.c" lines 56
Say I open another file, e.g. refer.c, :ls will now give me:
1 %a "main.c" lines 27
2 "other.c" lines 56
3 # "refer.c" lines 125
If I delete the buffer containing refer.c, :ls now shows:
1 %a "main.c" lines 27
2 "other.c" lines 56
But if I do a cntl-^, refer.c will be displayed again!
Is there some way to get vim to reset the alternate buffer back to what it last was automatically? A "history" of alternate buffers?
Or am I stuck with doing a :2 b to reload other.c into the alternate buffer?
Or maybe there is a good reason for this behaviour?
In this case, "alternate" just means "previous". So, yes, :b2 (or 2 ctrl-6) is probably the easiest way to change which two buffers will be toggled by ctrl-6.
Also, take a look at the :keepalt command.
As you'll come to expect with Vim, there is an excellent reason for this behaviour. :bd (mnemonic for buffer delete) does not delete the buffer, per se, it deletes it from the main buffer list!
If you try :ls! or :buffers! you will see it is is still available but with a u adjacent to it's buffer number, indicating it is now "unlisted" (that is, unlisted unless you list it with an exclamation mark!).
I'm making it sound as horrible as possible, but as with most of Vim it works once you understand it, and the use of exclamation mark / bang to force the command is consistent.
To get rid of the buffer completely you need to wipe it using :bw. When you have done that you will still have the same problem, but this time, attempting to switch to the alternate buffer with CTRL-^ will elicit No alternate file (because this time it really has gone).
To switch to the file you want, yes, use the buffer number: :b2, or whatever the buffer number is of the file you want, and that will establish a new alternate buffer.
I find it's easy to remember buffer numbers or look them up with :buffers or :buffers! really quickly, and of course changing to them is then quick, but of course there's a range of techniques in Vim for changing buffers, especially including marks.
You've also discovered another great Vim feature here, the unlisted buffers. When you're dealing with a few extra files it's sometimes helpful to "delete" them from the :buffers list using :bd, just to get them out of sight, but although hidden they're not unavailable, and you can check which one you want with :buffers! and then :b<num> to pull it up, without having to undelete it or anything.
If I do something like:
$ cat /bin/ls
into my terminal, I understand why I see a bunch of binary data, representing the ls executable. But afterwards, when I get my prompt back, my own keystrokes look crazy. I type "a" and I get a weird diagonal line. I type "b" and I get a degree symbol.
Why does this happen?
Because somewhere in your binary data were some control sequences that your terminal interpreted as requests to, for example, change the character set used to draw. You can restore everything to normal like so:
reset
Just do a copy-paste:
echo -e '\017'
to your bash and characters will return to normal. If you don't run bash, try the following keystrokes:
<Ctrl-V><Ctrl-O><Enter>
and hopefully your terminal's status will return to normal when it complains that it can't find either a <Ctrl-V><Ctrl-O> or a <Ctrl-O> command to run.
<Ctrl-N>, or character 14 —when sent to your terminal— orders to switch to a special graphics mode, where letters and numbers are replaced with symbols. <Ctrl-O>, or character 15, restores things back to normal.
The terminal will try to interpret the binary data thrown at it as control codes, and garble itself up in the process, so you need to sanitize your tty.
Run:
stty sane
And things should be back to normal. Even if the command looks garbled as you type it, the actual characters are being stored correctly, and when you press return the command will be invoked.
You can find more information about the stty command here.
You're getting some control characters piped into the shell that are telling the shell to alter its behavior and print things differently.
VT100 is pretty much the standard command set used for terminal windows, but there are a lot of extensions. Some control character set used, keyboard mapping, etc.
When you send a lot of binary characters to such a terminal, a lot of settings change. Some terminals have options to 'clear' the settings back to default, but in general they simply weren't made for binary data.
VT100 and its successors are what allow Linux to print in color text (such as colored ls listings) in a simple terminal program.
-Adam
If you really must dump binary data to your terminal, you'd have much better luck if you pipe it to a pager like less, which will display it in a slightly more readable format. (You may also be interested in strings and od, both can be useful if you're fiddling around with binary files.)