I just ran :help registers in Vim and noticed that # 'contains the name of the alternate file'.
I have seen an example for renaming files that goes like this:
" Save the current file, foo.txt, as bar.txt
:w bar.txt
" Start editing bar.txt
:e#
So apparently in that case, the file you just saved out is the "alternate file."
Can someone give me a more general definition for the "alternate file" and what else you might use it for?
The alternate file is the file that was last edited in the current window. Actually when you use some command to open a new buffer, if the buffer that was displayed had a filename associated with it, that filename is recorded as alternate file name.
See :help alternate-file.
Very useful for...
Pasting in the name of a file I've just been looking at into the current file.
You can use <C-R># for this in insert mode or "#p in normal mode.
Not that useful for...
Jumping back and forth between two files. It does the job very well, but this is just something I don't generally need to do.
Even in the example given, I'd probably use:saveas bar.txt instead.
An Example:
Say if you're doing a bit of C programming and want to call some function. You can't remember the name of the function, so you place a mark on your current location mA and jump into several different files using tags or grep to find out where the function is declared and what it's actually called.
Ah - found it. You can copy the name and return to the mark yiw'A
Uh-oh - we also need to #include the file! Easy - just use the alternate file name register to paste the file name in... Gi#include"<C-R>#"
Be pleased that you've avoided the distraction of having to go back to the function's declaration and copy out the file name via :let #"=#% or something similar.
What I'd rather do when jumping between files:
When editing two files, it's probably easier to split them, so you can keep both on screen at the same time. If I'm editing 2 files I'll usually be comparing them in some way.
Usually I'm interested in 1-3 files (any more and I get confused). I'll often jump into or directly open many other files. Marking the interesting files, or traversing the jump list is usually the way to get around in this case.
If you're editing C/C++ where you're switching between a file and it's header, use a plugin! It will be much more convenient.
I use it in the buffer context to return to the last buffer that I was editing
vim foo bar
:n
:e#
will take you back to foo in that case
I 've always interpreted the "alternate file" as being the "previous file", so it is an handy way to jump back to the buffer you were editing.
Related
So, I just realized I could use marks with capital letters to go to different files. That's great! However, I'm trying to find a way to close the buffer and return to the previous one. Say I go to my header file to change or add the declaration of the function I'm writing, and then I'd like to save the file, but only if there's changes to it, to go back to working on the contents of the function. How can I do this?
There's :x, but it also quits VIM
There's :bd!, but it doesnt save the changes
There's :bw, but that's even worse (unfortunately that's w[ipeout], not w[rite]...)
There's ctrl+O, but it doesnt seem to work when I edit the file (also, it doesnt actually close the buffer)
There's :up followed by :bd, but that's two commands and VIM's about efficiency, so I'd prefer a single command if it exists
There's a few other options and variants, but none that do what I wanted, afaik
It feels like this should be simple enough to do with one command, preferably without macros/plugins/functions/snippets/etc; as close to vanilla as possible. I get the feeling I'm missing something obvious.
You could concatenate commands like so:
:w|bd
I'd like to save the file, but only if there's changes to it
:up[date]
to go back to working on the contents of the function
Press Ctrl^, or enter the command :e[dit] #
I'd prefer a single command if it exists
Set an option :set autowrite and then Vim will save the current buffer on pressing Ctrl^ automatically.
The title is not really specific, but I have trouble identifying the correct key words as I'm not sure what is going on here. For the same reason, it is possible that my question has a duplicate, as . If that's the case: sorry!
I have a Linux application that receive data via flat files. I don't know exactly how those files are generated, but I can read them without any problem. Those are short files, only a line each.
For test purpose, I tried to modify one of those files and reinjected it again in the application. But when I do that I can see in the log that it added a mysterious page break at the end of the message (resulting in the application not recognising the message)...
For the sake of example, let's say I receive a flat file, named original, that contains the following:
ABCDEF
I make a copy of this file and named it copy.
If I compare those two files using the "diff" command, it says they are identical (as I expect them to be)
If I open copy via Vi and then quit without changing nor saving anything and then use the "diff" command, it says they are identical (as I also expect them to be)
If I open copy via Vi and then save it without changing anything and then use the "diff" command, I have the following (I added the dot for layout purpose):
diff original copy
1c1
< ABCDEF
\ No newline at end of file
---
.> ABCDEF
And if I compare the size of my two files, I can see that original is 71 bytes when copy is 72.
It seems that the format of the file change when I save the file. I first thought of an encoding problem, so I used the ":set list" command on Vim to see the invisible characters. But for both files, I can see the following:
ABCDEF$
I have found other ways to do my test, But this problem still bugged me and I would really like to understand it. So, my two questions are:
What is happening here?
How can I modify a file like that without creating this mysterious page break?
Thank you for your help!
What happens is that Vim is set by default to assume that the files you edit end with a "newline" character. That's normal behavior in UNIX-land. But the "files" your program is reading look more like "streams" to me because they don't end with a newline character.
To ensure that those "files" are written without a newline character, set the following options before writing:
:set binary noeol
See :help 'eol'.
When VIM refers to a file im editing as a "buffer"...what exactly does it mean? Whenever I edit the file in shell or in the application, it refers to the copy of the file as a buffer. I was curious as to what exactly this meant, but couldn't find anything on it. Any help would be appreciated.
From :help windows-intro, as linked by icktoofay in a comment:
A buffer is the in-memory text of a file ... [which is] loaded into memory for editing. The original file remains unchanged until you write the buffer to the file.
That is, a buffer represents the actual loaded/working data itself.
You can think of it as similar to the Windows clipboard. You can use it to cut, copy and paste text snippets.
But you can have multiple "buffers" open at the same time. And each buffer can have a name.
See VI Tutorial: Manipulating Text:
A named buffer is another method to move or duplicate text... first position the cursor at the material you want to copy. Next make a copy of the desired text by using the yank command. This places the copied text into a temporary buffer...
Is there a way to tell Vim not to highlight a word once? For example, in "the password is abc123", I don't want to add abc123 to the wordlist, but still wouldn't like the big red rectangle around it.
Clarification: I'm looking for a command that makes the spell checker ignore the current word (or last misspelling).
Without having the word stored somewhere, it's hard (not to say impossible) to ignore it always.
But, if you are looking to ignore the word really once, that is only for a moment, you can add it to the internal list with the zG command.
*zG*
zG Like "zg" but add the word to the internal word list
|internal-wordlist|.
*internal-wordlist*
The internal word list is used for all buffers where 'spell' is set. It is
not stored, it is lost when you exit Vim. It is also cleared when 'encoding'
is set.
When your cursor is positioned on a word that is highlighted as misspelled you can add it to your wordlist by pressing zg. Vim allows you to load more than one wordlist at a time, which makes it possible to have (for example) a global wordlist, and a project specific wordlist.
By default, when you run zg it will add the current word to the first spellfile it finds in your runtime path for the current encoding. In my case, that turns out to be ~/.vim/spell/en.utf-8.add when I'm working with UTF-8 encoding. Try running the following commands:
:setlocal spellfile+=~/.vim/spell/en.utf-8.add
:setlocal spellfile+=oneoff.utf-8.add
That will set you up so that zg (or 1zg) adds the current word to your default spellfile. But running 2zg would add the current word to a file called oneoff.utf-8.add, in the same directory as the file that you are working on. If the file doesn't exist, Vim will try to create it for you.
When you open the file again in the future, you will have to run the same two commands to make Vim check the oneoff.utf-8.add spellfile. Unfortunately, Vim does not allow you to set the spellfile option in a modeline, so if you want to run these commands automatically when the file opens, you would have to find some other way. This question includes a few ideas on how you might proceed.
I want to get the file name without the file extension in Vim.
I wrote the following function in my .vimrc file to compile and run the Java program:
:function! JAVA_RUN()
:!javac %^M
:endfunction
map <F3> :execute JAVA_RUN()<CR> :source $HOME/.vimrc<CR>
How can I get the file name without the extension inside the function?
:help expand() should give you the answer, see expand().
You should use the r modifier for %, with %:r instead of % to get the file name without extension.
If you want to write functions to build and execute files, you should also have a look at the documentation for shellescape, in order to prevent problems with spaces in file name or path.
If you want to expand a filename (other than % etc) take a look at fnamemodify()
fnamemodify({fname}, {mods}) *fnamemodify()*
Modify file name {fname} according to {mods}. {mods} is a
string of characters like it is used for file names on the
command line. See |filename-modifiers|.
fnamemodify("main.java", ":r") returns main.
I literally just read a similar question to this (in that someone else seemed to be trying to configure vim to build automagically for them with the F-key), and wrote an answer about how you can leverage the power of vim's :make command without even needing to write a Makefile. In your case, it's less directly related to the question, but I thought I'd mention it in case you were interested.
Furthermore, someone seems to have written something on Vim Tips Wiki about how to set up vim's :make command to specifically work with Java projects built with ant. I haven't worked with Java in a while myself, but in your case specifically it might be a good place to get started.
I came here looking for an answer for a similar question. I wanted to be able to extract the current class name from the java file being edited. I found a very neat way to do this in vim with an abbreviation:
ab xclass <C-R>=expand('%:t:r')<CR>
Place this line in your .vimrc (or similar) for this to work. An abbreviation will auto-trigger as soon as you press space, and so I usually prefix them with 'x' to avoid their accidental expansion.
The trick here is the combination of :t and :r in the argument to expand(). % is the "current file name", :t selects just the tail of the path ("last path component only") and :r selects just the root ("one extension removed"). (quoted parts are from the official expand() documentation.)
So when you are creating a new class in file /a/b/ClassIAmAboutToCreate.java you would type:
public class xclass {
the moment you press space after "xclass", the abbreviation will be expanded to public class ClassIAmAboutToCreate, which is exactly what you need.
Also, note that an abbreviation can be triggered by pressing Ctrl+] which avoids inserting a space after the class name.