I have quite a few tools expected to be used togather with gvim on Windows. Usually the env variable PATH should be set for each tool respectively. Is it possible to make the modified PATH variable privately visible to gvim itself rather than system-widely visible to all programs?
BR,Ruochen
You can modify the PATH directly inside Vim (or your ~/.vimrc); it will then used for any external command started from it (i.e. :! and :call system()).
:let $PATH .= ':/tmp'
If you want gvim to run with a modified PATH, set it on the way in.
Instead of just running gvim, run:
PATH=/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:$HOME/bin:/bin gvim
This assumes you are running a bourne family shell. (not tcsh or csh)
Related
I often use gf in vim to open files. Often these file paths use environment variables.
I am using tcl shell to launch some scripts. When the environment variable is used without ::env (option which is necessary for env for tcl), vim has no trouble understanding it. But when it does contain, vim is unable to use the environment variable value.
This works for gf:
$hello/bla.tcl
This does NOT work for gf:
$::env(hello)/bla.tcl
If there are spaces before and after the file name, you can do with
viWgf
I tried to start gvim using start command like this
start gvim.exe
But it doesn't work for gvim, although it does work for firefox.exe. My questions are-
How can I start gvim from command prompt?
Why start command doesn't work for gvim.exe?
Are there any additional parameter that I can use when starting gvim from command prompt?
Completely different, so a separate answer:
Actually, -- I just remembered -- Vim isn't normally added to the path variable, it's run through .bat files in C:\Windows.
From another answer on StackOverflow:
When you install gVim: Please make sure Create .bat files for
command line use is checked. It'll create several .bat files in
C:\Windows\:
C:\>cd %windir%
C:\WINDOWS>dir /b *.bat
evim.bat
gview.bat
gvim.bat
gvimdiff.bat
view.bat
vim.bat
vimdiff.bat
vimtutor.bat
This is because gvim.exe is not in your PATH list. If you know which directory gvim.exe resides, add this directory to your PATH list. This can be done by typing the following in an Explorer address bar:
Control Panel\System and Security\System
Then press Advanced system setings, then Environment Variables. The PATH is a list of directories separated by a ;.
Try typing just "gvim" instead of "start gvim.exe". That works for me. Vim isn't in my path environment variable.
When I run gvim from MSYS, things go wrong during initialization. Namely, gvim can't find the initialization files that are in 'C:\Documents and Settings\username\vimfiles.
[Specifically, gvim reports the error E117: Unknown function: pathogen#infect during initialization, so it never found autoload\pathogen.vim. Doing :scriptnames also confirms that none of the setup files from vimfiles\ are run.]
I think I've debugged why it goes wrong. When you start MSYS, the MSYS shell inherits the windows enviroment variables, but changes some of them to it's custom values. C:\Documents and Settings\username is the value of $HOME in Windows, but MSYS sets it to something like C:/msys/user name. And of course, Vim uses $HOME to find the right initialization files.
I also notice set shell? has changed to something like shell=C:/msys/bin/sh instead of shell=C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe, but I hope this isn't important for fixing the initialization problem.
I need to run gvim with the normal windows environment variables. At least I need to be able to manually override a few important ones like $HOME to something I specify (i.e., I'm not concerned about my windows $HOME changing, so it's fine to use a static value).
I tried to reset $HOME manually in my vimrc, but by then it is too late.
Is there some trick to specifying $HOME early on during initialization, or as an extra command line parameter?
Alternatively, is there some trick with running commands from msys differently? I know almost nothing about how the shell C:/msys/bin/sh works, but I could conceive of some extra arguments that changes the visibile environment for the command (e.g. gvim.exe) you are typing.
---Edit---
Reposting the solution that worked (it achieves the later idea):
Instead of running gvim.exe, run the command HOME="C:\Documents and Settings\username" gvim.exe
In bash and other UNIX shells, you can do:
$ HOME='/path/to/dir' gvim
to temporarily set $HOME to a different value.
I admit I'm not familiar at all with the Windows command line, but it might be worth a try.
I believe you can define $HOME just like any other environment variable.
Try adding this to the start of your .vimrc.
let $HOME="C:\Documents and Settings\username"
I had a similar issue when running Cygwin (which is similar to MSYS).
The easiest solution for me was to simply set the HOME environment variable to an empty string. Otherwise, the Cygwin HOME value would be appended to the Windows USERPROFILE in GVim and it would fail to start correctly. Not explicitly setting the full path of the HOME means that I can use the same start-up files on different systems where the USERNAME may not be the same.
Likewise, the SHELL environment variable should not be inherited from Cygwin Bash. This results in errors when running shell or external programs via !. Again, I set this to be an empty variable since Vim is smart enough to figure out what it should be.
In my .bashrc, I set the following alias for running Windows gvim which starts GVim with the HOME and SHELL variables set to an empty string – just for that command.
gvim="/cygdrive/c/Program Files (x86)/Vim/vim74/gvim"
if [ -x "$gvim" ]; then
alias gvim="HOME= SHELL= \"$gvim\""
fi
unset gvim
I achieved this by making a windows symbol link (Win 7 or higher).
Via a symbol link, you can even make vim and gvim to use the same configuration and plugin.
In vim, type :sh will switch to shell, and exit can exit the shell and get back to vim. Is there any command to check if it's in vim shell mode? So that I won't accidentally vim to open the same file again. I want to avoid below scenario:
vim myfile > :sh > exit > vim myfile // get warning of another vim instance is editing the same file
These are the normal scenario:
vim myfile > :sh > exit // keep editing
vim myfile > :wq > vim myfile // keep editing
In addition to #a3nm answer, what you can do is
use pstree -h: it will output process tree with current branch highligted and all you need to check is whether there is vim in the highlight.
Another possibility is ps t: it will show all processes using the current terminal and should show vim in a list when you are inside :sh. ps -oargs t may be more useful in case you want to know arguments you ran vim with.
These methods are more reliable because VIMRUNTIME, VIM and MYVIMRC environment variables may be overrided by you in order to do some customizations (BTW, they are defined by vim for use in vimscripts, not by :sh). They also work for other processes that allow you to run a subshell, but do not define any environment variables.
I would also suggest to consider using <C-z> in normal mode or :suspend/:stop in Ex because these use shell vim was launched from instead of creating new. This behavior gives you access to history of commands you typed before running vim and also makes you able to write more complex and time-consuming shell configuration without needing to wait every time.
In case you use <C-z> both methods still work, but first method won’t highlight vim because it will be at the same level (has the same parent) as pstree itself, likely just below or above pstree in graph. This also enables third method: jobs shell builtin.
In order to restore from <C-z> you should use fg (a single % in zsh and bash also works) which is less to type then exit (but more then <C-d>).
The :sh command in vim seems to define the VIMRUNTIME, VIM and MYVIMRC environment variables, so you can just check if they are defined. To do so, you can run echo $VIM, for instance, which should return an empty line in a normal shell and something like /usr/share/vim in a shell run from vim.
I have used "alias ruby=ruby1.9.1", so I can execute my ruby with this:
ruby 123.rb
or
ruby1.9.1 123.rb
But in my vim, I use :!ruby and get
/bin/bash: ruby: command not found.
I must use :!ruby1.9.1
How does alias work? Why vim doesn't know it?
When Vim starts a process it makes a system call. It has only inherited the environment variables from your shell if you started it from the shell. But it won't know your bash aliases.
Bash aliases are only a convenience when you enter a command line in the Bash shell. They are expanded by Bash only.
If you want real aliases put symlinks in a private hidden folder, and add that folder to your PATH, or use the alternatives facility.
You can try
:set shellcmdflag+=i
to call bass as "interactive" although that does give an annoying message for every shell command executed.
Aliases (unlike environment variables) are not inherited by subshells. So if you want an alias always available, you need to set it in your .bashrc file, so every instance of the shell will get it on startup