How to navigate in large project in VIM - vim
How do you manage big projects (hundreds of files) using only VIM?
I personally start having problems in any larger than small project.
is there any way to quickly 'go to file', preferably with name completition?
same for 'go to class definition', when it is in another file
I kinda know all the VIM basics, so I don't have problem using it for writing scripts or quick editing some source code. But it gets really messy for me when I have to navigate between files.
VIM has excellent support for tags. Once you have created a tags file for your project, you can jump to a definition or declaration of a method, class, etc., including jumping across files, all inside the same editing session.
Try
:help tags
To generate a tags file for C/C++, go to your shell prompt (I'm assuming your system is *nix/Cygwin) and type
info ctags
or
ctags --help
I like simple solutions, my favorite way to navigate at the moment is:
Add to ~/.vimrc.local
set path=$PWD/**
Then type this in the editor to find the file anywhere in the current working directory (pwd)
:find user_spec.rb
You can use tab-completion on the filenames to find multiple choices as well, making this TextMate convert very happy.
I use a combination of NERDTree (directory sidebar), FuzzyFinder Textmate (go-to-file like TextMate's CMD+T), and Sessions (:h sessions) to help me deal with large projects.
I would suggest using some sessions helper plugin. I would mention what I use, but I'm not satisfied with it yet. Just Google "vim sessions".
One thing to note with getting FuzzyFinder Textmate to work is that it depends on an old version the FuzzyFinder plugin, specifically v2.16. Anything higher and you'll get errors. But it's definitely worth the trouble. While it doesn't have name completion, its search is smart so if I search for fro/time/actionsphp it will pull up the file apps/(fro)ntend/modules/(time)_tracking/actions/(actions).class.(php) (parenthesis denote what it's matching). It makes it very easy to pick out files that are only unique by their folder name.
As well as the invaluable ctags and the various associated commands. I also couldn't live without the project plugin, which allows you to have the files of interest associated with a project in a separate pane. I can't remember how much of my setup is customised, but if I want to open a source file called Debug.c, I hit:
<F12> " Opens the project pane
/De " Searches for "De", which is likely to be enough to find Debug.c or possibly Debug.h
<ENTER> " Opens the selected file and closes the project pane
I often then do:
:vsp " Vertically split the window
<F12> " Reopen project pane
# " Search back to find previous entry with the same name (to find
Debug.h if I was on Debug.c: my headers are in Headers/ and
my source is in Source/, so the headers come earlier in the list
than the source). I use * to go the other way, obviously.
<ENTER> " Open the header file in the other window and close the project window.
With this relatively short sequence, I can open any file and it's header in a vertical split. Since the project plugin window is just a text file, completion is achieved by using Vim's searching capability.
Starting in Vim 7.3, the :find command has tab-completion of filenames.
So if you set your 'path' option to contain your entire project (probably using the ** wildcard to allow recursively searching subdirectories), then you can use the :find, :sfind, :tabfind, etc. commands with completion to get to any file in your project. This also allows jumping to files directly with gf and friends if the file name is in your text, for example in an include directive.
With this method, no external tools or plugins are needed for navigating to specific files. Although, it may admittedly not be as fast or easy to use, and doesn't address the need for jumping to definitions. For definitions, I use ctags as other answers suggest.
If you are using ctags as other posters have recommended, then make sure you look at the taglist plugin.
Make sure you take the time to read the docs and learn the key bindings. Here are a few to get you started (from the TList window):
o - open file in new window
t - open file in new tab
[[ or backspace - previous file in list
]] or tab - next file in list
Exuberant ctags.
Use Ctrl-] to jump to the tag under the cursor.
Opening vim from root of your source file and extending path option to include all sub-directories therein.
For example set path+=/usr/include/c++/** for C++ headers and set path+=** for your source directory.
This ,then, opens a plethora of following possibilities.
1) Opening file by name or parts of it
:find file_name
You can use auto-completion and wildcard expansion with :find reliably. You type the name, it will locate the name. This works language agnostic.I am sure you will like it.
2) Navigating to files under cusror:
if you want to go a file path like #include "project/path/classA.h.
gf or gF - go to file under cursor.
Ctrl-6 - to come back to last cursor position after gf or gF
3) API lookup and navigating to the API location
[i or [I can be used to look up your function signature for word under cursor without leaving your workspace. [<Tab> to actually go to declaration. Use Ctrl-6 to come back to last location.
Without extending path, you can start navigating files by :Ex command and navigate and open your file. I prefer NerdTree over this though.
I use FindFile. If you open vim at the root of your project and run :FC . the plugin will cache all the filenames beneath your cwd. You can then do :FF to open a completion menu and type the name of the file you want (or rather, the first few letters).
Although I'm kinda hoping someone will point out a better solution so I can learn something, NERDTree has been good to me for getting to specific files with name completion as long as I have the tree expanded. The command when I need to get to a file is something like:
,d/foo.pyo (where foo.py is a file name)
,d to open the tree, / to enter search mode, the name (or partial name, or regex, or whatever) of the file, and then o to open.
Of course you may have to hit 'n' a few times if you didn't type enough of the filename or there are duplicates.
I admit it feels like a bit of a hack using NERDTree like this although it has gotten so far into my muscle memory by now that I don't even think about it.
Of course I use ctags too but those are only useful when you have a function near the cursor and need to get to its definition in another file or something. A lot of times I say "OK, I need to work on feature x now" and need to navigate to another file without any references nearby that ctags would really help with.
I'm using two plugins of mine:
searchInRuntime that completes filenames on command line. It is somehow similar to fuzzyfinder and lookupfile,
lh-tags which is completely experimental and undocumented. It offers two features: automatic and quick update of the tagfile on file save(ing?), and a tag selector plugged to <c-w><m-down> by default. You may want to check the renowned taglist plugin instead.
Both require my viml library lh-vim-lib.
Try SourceCodeObedinece. This one I developed to handle C++ 1Gb source files project.
I use it in pair with 0scan.
These two plugins are wrappers around the most popular Vim browsing tools: ctags and cscope.
Related
Vim :Explore, don't edit file when pressing <Enter>
in Vim, I type :Explore to open the vim browser. When I press on a directory, I enter the directory as desired. When I press on a file, I start editing that file. I would like to do something else. So basically I would like to map to 'enter directory' for directories, and something custom for files.
The netrw plugin allows opening of file in the current window, (vertical) splits, and a remote Vim instance. The closest built-in functionality to what you want is customized browsing with a special handler, which is triggered with the plugin's x mapping; cp. :help netrw-x. You can customize via an external command, or a Vimscript function that you define (:help netrw_filehandler). In this, you can do "something else", with all the power of Vim to implement it. As for the distinction between directories and files, this mostly falls flat due to the different keys used. If you need to distinguish in your custom function, the isdirectory() function is there to help. alternative The NERD tree plugin offers an alternative to netrw, and also offers a similar extension, either via custom mappings, or a menu. As it's mostly a drop-in replacement for netrw (but with additional functionality), it might be worth to check it out before investing too much in customizing netrw.
Explore filesystem/directories in vim?
What is the best way/plugin to explore filesystem and to open files and directories?
The best way to explore filesystem/directories in Vim is the one that best suits your needs. As it is phrased, this question can't get an answer because there's no "way" universally agreed upon. On the other hand, if you want to have an overview of the many ways to explore the filesystem in Vim then, yes, that is a question that can be answered. In a non-exhaustive way, though. NERDTree and netrw are already covered. These plugins show you a tree-like list of files and directories that you can act on. Before trying NERDTree, I'd suggest you try your hands on netrw as it comes with Vim by default and offers a much wider range of features than NERDTree. You should look around on http://www.vim.org because there are a bunch of similar plugins. On the opposite side of the spectrum, you have Vim's own file handling capabilities. Here is a sample of commands you can use from Vim to open files: :e filename edits filename :sp filename edits filename in an horizontal split :vs filename edits filename in a vertical split :tabe filename edits filename in a new tab You have tab-completion, just like in the shell: :e <tab> goes through all the directories/files in the working directory You can use wildcards, of course: :e **/*.js<tab> shows all the js files in the working directory and its subdirectories Assuming you have set wildmenu in your ~/.vimrc, you can make tab-completion even better with an horizontal menu which can be customized further… You can also use "args"… but that will be for another time. Somewhere between Vim's default commands and netrw/NERDTree you can find a bunch of "fuzzy" and less fuzzy file openers more or less modeled after a feature introduced in TextMate a while ago: FuzzyFinder, LustyExplorer, Command-T, CtrlP and many other variations on the same theme. The core concept is to provide you with a list of choice that you narrow down by typing more characters in a prompt until the file ou want to edit is selected. If you decide you want to go down the plugin road, I'd suggest you visit http://www.vim.org, compare what's there, try a few plugins and decide for yourself. Anyway, you should get used to the basics before looking for a plugin.
Try NERD Tree, besides the tree tab it also enhances the classical directory listing as suggested by #ATOzToa.
On Windows, I find :!start explorer %:p:h to be the way to go, or :!start explorer . if I'm in the directory I want opened. On MacVim you could probably do something similar with :!open . to open a Finder window on the current directory but I don't have a Mac handy to try it out. Not sure what you'd use in GNU/Linux; it probably depends on your desktop manager.
vim plugin for directory list/file open
I'm looking for a vim plugin similar to http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1325 with a directory list in which you can select a file to open. Does this exist somewhere? Wasn't able to find it myself.
NERDTree is the second best ranked plugin on vim.org and it perfectly fits your description. There are many other variations of the same principle: FuzzyFinder LustyExplorer (the one I used before) Command-T (famous among TextMate switchers, I never liked it, though) CtrlP (the one I use now) … And I second :Explore.
Have you tried the :Explore command that comes with the standard vim distribution since (roughly) version 6? See http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/File_explorer for basic help on that command. See http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/pi_netrw.html#netrw-quickhelp for detailed help on what the Explorer can do. If you want to open an explorer without replacing the current buffer, you can use the :Sexplore command. A puerile mnemonic for that is to execute :Sex.
Coda Clips for Vim
I'm currently trying to switch from Coda (a Mac IDE) to Vim. One thing I loved about Coda and my knowledge of Vim cannot replace were the so-called "clips". Basically, you type, say, "new", press TAB, and the text is replaced with a basic XHTML page. And you can add as many keyword/clips combinations as you want. The most I could get with Vim so far was to create a new file containing my clip, and then use :r FILE in Vim in order to get it inserted, but this is not a very elegant solution, as I'd have to carry these clips around in every directory I have a file I want to use my clips with. So assuming I've explained things properly, what would be my choices?
For various editors, there's a functionality called '''snippets''' which tab expands the beginnings of common text (like a HTML div, or C function definition) into a skeleton for that code. There's a couple vim plugins that present this functionality. Two off the top of my bookmark list: snippetsEmu snipMate I heard of another plugin for quick HTML editing that uses snippets recently: zencoding Check those out and see if they're near what you're looking for. Also, you can define a default BufNewFile action in vim - which lets you read in a skeleton for a file if it doesn't already exist automatically. *skeleton* *template* To read a skeleton (template) file when opening a new file: > :autocmd BufNewFile *.c 0r ~/vim/skeleton.c :autocmd BufNewFile *.h 0r ~/vim/skeleton.h :autocmd BufNewFile *.java 0r ~/vim/skeleton.java Put those (or the equivalent) in your .vimrc (w/o the leading colon) to have them set up automatically every time you run vim.
Very late to the party, but: I would recommend something like Dash for this, because the snippets are then available across all your apps. This can be a significant bonus as your muscle-memory starts to rely on particular snippets, and can also ease the transition from one editor to the other, because your snippets are independent. Sometimes I find myself using snippets in something like Mail to send to someone else, or in a Vim terminal on a remote machine I haven't configured, and it's great to have them all there at the ready. Now all we need is a cross-platform solution which moves with you to a colleague's machine!
As well as the various snippet plugins, Vim also has an abbreviation feature built in, using the :ab[breviate] command. For example you can define this: :ab <h <head>^M</head>^M<body>^M<\body> Then when you type <h<SPACE> it will expand into the full text. The ^M in the example above are actually carriage returns inserted in the string definition with <ctrl-V><RETURN>.
Shortcut to open file in Vim
I want to open a file in Vim like in Eclipse using Ctrl + Shift + R, or via the Ctrl + N option of autofill. Invoke a keyboard shortcut, type the file name/pattern, and choose from all the matching files names. I know opening it normally like: :tabe <filepath> :new <filepath> :edit <filepath> The problem here is that I have to specify the whole file path in these cases.
What I normally do is e . (e-space-dot) which gives me a browsable current directory - then I can / - search for name fragments, just like finding a word in a text file. I find that generally good enough, simple and quick.
I recently fell in love with fuzzyfinder.vim ... :-) :FuzzyFinderFile will let you open files by typing partial names or patterns.
:find is another option. I open vim from the root of my project and have the path set to there. Then, I can open files located anywhere in the tree using: :find **/filena< tab > Tab will autocomplete through various matches. (** tells it to search recursively through the path).
You can search for a file in the current path by using **: :tabe **/header.h Hit tab to see various completions if there is more than one match.
Consider using CtrlP plug-in. It is included in Janus Distributive. Allows you to find files in the current directory, open buffers or most recently used files using "fuzzy matching" or regular expression.
unless I'm missing something, :e filename is the fastest way I've found. You can use tab to autocomplete the filename as well.
I like the :FuzzyFinderTextMate (or Ctrl + F) on my setup. See http://weblog.jamisbuck.org/2008/10/10/coming-home-to-vim
I use a couple of shortcuts in my .vimrc file (exact syntax below).
They are based on the fact that in 90% of the cases, I want to open another file in the same directory as the file that I am currently editing, or in a directory that is very close in the hierarchy to that edited file.
Here's what the commands do do:
,cd : Change the current working directory to the directory that the current file you are editing is in.
,e : Opens a file with the current working directory already filled in so you have to specify only the filename.
Put these into your .vimrc:
map ,e :e <C-R>=expand("%:p:h") . "/" <CR>
map ,cd :cd %:p:h <CR>
Here's a sequence of events:
You are editing a file called test.java in "/home/prog"
,cd -> Current working directory now
becomes "/home/prog"
,e -> Expands to ":e /home/prog" so
that you can just fill in the file
name, say test.h.
,e -> Expands to ":e /home"
tab -> Cycle through subdirectories of /home
enter -> cd to the directory you
want say /home/prog
,e -> Expands to ":e /home/prog"
There's also command-t which I find to be the best of the bunch (and I've tried them all). It's a minor hassle to install it but, once it's installed, it's a dream to use. https://wincent.com/products/command-t/
Use tabs, they work when inputting file paths in vim escape mode!
If you've got tags (and you should), you can open a file from the command line just by the name of the class or method or c function, with "vim -t DBPlaylist", and within vim with ":tag ShowList".
If you're editing files in a common directory, you can :cd to that directory, then use :e on just the filename. For example, rather than: :e /big/long/path/that/takes/a/while/to/type/or/tab/complete/thingy.rb :sp /big/long/path/that/takes/a/while/to/type/or/tab/complete/other_thingy.c :vs /big/long/path/that/takes/a/while/to/type/or/tab/complete/one_more_thingy.java You can do: :cd /big/long/path/that/takes/a/while/to/type/or/tab/complete/ :e thingy.rb :sp other_thingy.c :vs one_more_thingy.java Or, if you already have a file in the desired directory open, you can use the % shorthand for the current filename, and trim it to the current directory with the :h modifier (:help :_%:) : :e /big/long/path/that/takes/a/while/to/type/or/tab/complete/thingy.rb :cd %:h :sp other_thingy.c :vs one_more_thingy.java And, like others have said, you can tab-complete file names on the ex-line (see :help cmdline-completion for more).
This isn't exactly what you're looking for, but it's good in many cases (though not all). If you VIM open and there's a name of a file in the buffer, you can put the cursor on that filename and type gf. This opens the file whose name is under the cursor in the same buffer. It's the same as :e CTRL+r CTRL+w
I know three plugins that permit to open files, support auto-completion, and don't require to enter the full path name of the file(s) to open (as long as the files are under one of the directories from &path vim option): searchInRuntime that I'm maintaining (the completion is not on :e/:find, but on split actions) fuzzy finder as it has been already pointed out, lookupfile. Lately, I've seen another plugin with a similar feature, but I don't remember the name. Soon, :find is likely support auto-completion -- patches on this topic are circulating on vim_dev mailing-list these days.
you can use (set wildmenu) you can use tab to autocomplete filenames you can also use matching, for example :e p*.dat or something like that (like in old' dos) you could also :browse confirm e (for a graphical window) but you should also probably specify what vim version you're using, and how that thing in emacs works. Maybe we could find you an exact vim alternative.
FuzzyFinder has been mentioned, however I love the textmate like behaviour of the FuzzyFinderTextmate plugin which extends the behaviour to include all subdirs. Make sure you are using version 2.16 of fuzzyfinder.vim - The higher versions break the plugin.
With Exuberant ctags, you can create tag files with file information: ctags --extra=+f -R * Then, open file from VIM with :tag filename You can also use <tab> to autocomplete file name.
In GVIM, The file can be browsed using open / read / write dialog;
:browse {command}
{command} - open / read / write
open - Opens the file
read - Appends the file
write - SaveAs dialog
I installed FuzzyFinder. However, the limitation is that it only finds files in the current dir. One workaround to that is to add FuzzyFinderTextmate. However, based on the docs and commentary, that doesn't work reliably. You need the right version of FuzzyFinder and you need your copy of Vim to be compiled with Ruby support. A different workaround I'm trying out now is to open all the files I'm likely to need at the beginning of the editing session. E.g., open all the files in key directories... :args app/** :args config/** :args test/** etc... (This means I would have possibly scores of files open, however so far it still seems to work OK.) After that, I can use FuzzyFinder in buffer mode and it will act somewhat like TextMate's command-o shortcut... :FuzzyFinderBuffer