How to open a file in a list of files in Vim? - vim

Question

I have a longish list of files opened in vim that looks like this:
/dir1/file1
/dir2/file2
/dir2/file3
.....
How can I open all of them one by one the easiest way possible in the same session of vim either with split or edit?

Answer 1

I'd say with -p for tabs
vim -p `cat yourlistoffiles`

Answer 2

You can use quickfix mode, as following
:set errorformat=%f
:cf myfilelist
at this point you can use the normal quickfix shortcuts to go through your files, :cn for the next file, :cp for the previous one and :cr to go to the first again.
EDIT:
oh, if you want to read the list from the current buffer, use :cb instead of :cf in in the instructions above

Answer 3

You can do the following
cat file | xargs vim
Where "file" contains your list of files, this will open the files in the same vim session. As usual when opening multiple buffers, you can navigate forward with :bn and backward :bp.

Answer 4

I'm going to assume you have the file list open inside Vim, and want to simulate the "gf" command across the whole list...
Edit your .vimrc to include this function:
function Openall()
edit <cfile>
bfirst
endfunction
You can then highlight the entire file (or the set of paths you want to open) using visual mode (1G, Shift-V, G) and typing ":call Openall()". Afterwards the command row will show this:
:'<,'>call Openall()
This will run the new Openall() function across all highlighted lines.
Press Enter and all the files will be opened in background buffers. You can then access them using the usual buffer commands. :ls will display them as a list.

Answer 5

I suppose you want to select and list in vim. all the files of a certain extension. From your home directory or a particular source.
find . -name "*.sh" | vim -
Then within vim, you could search and view this potentially huge list.
(Another topic)
You found your file, now you want to open it in a split?
CTRL-W F *CTRL-W_F*
Split current window in two. Edit file name under cursor and
jump to the line number following the file name. See |gF| for
details on how the line number is obtained.
{not available when the |+file_in_path| feature was disabled
at compile time}
CTRL-W gf *CTRL-W_gf*
Open a new tab page and edit the file name under the cursor.
Like "tab split" and "gf", but the new tab page isn't created
if the file does not exist.
{not available when the |+file_in_path| feature was disabled
at compile time}

Answer 6

For my use case, where you already have a buffer open with the list of files in it, I have found the best way to do this. You can type this in vim cmd mode:
:% normal gf<C-v><C-o>
(where <C-v> is you literally typing Ctrl and v, same for <C-o>)
and it becomes:
:% normal gf^O
How this works:
% runs the command for every line in the file
normal runs everything after it in normal mode
gf opens the file under the cursor in a new buffer
<C-v> lets you enter a control-code (<C-o> in this case)
<C-o> goes back to the last location, which will always be this buffer with the list of files
Potential usage:
# open buffer with list of files from grep
$ grep -rl "new User()" mycode/ libraries/ | vim -
# then runs this in vim:
:% normal gf^O
Bonus: Make a keyboard shortcut
Add the following to your ~/.vimrc :
" Open all files in current buffer (e.g. after piping to `vim -`)
nnoremap <leader>oa :% normal gf^O<cr>
This maps \oa to run the command (since <leader> is \ for me).
An alternate method using a macro:
qogf<C-o>j
which runs gf (go file) then uses <C-o> to get back to the initial unnamed buffer, then just goes down one line with j, ready to be repeated.
Then see how many lines in the buffer (12) and run the macro like this:
12#o

Answer 7

I often need to open a changing list of files that had been modified in my SVN checkout.
This one liner works to open all modified files in vim tabs.
svn st | grep ^M | awk "{print($2)}" | xargs vim -p

Answer 8

Try this with bash:
$ vim -S <(sed "s/^/badd /" <your file name>)
But I don't know why the first line of the file is ignored... :-O
This script works as expected:
rm -f myfile
for i in `seq 10000`
do
touch $i
echo $i >> myfile
done
vi -c "badd `head -1 myfile`" -S <(sed "s/^/badd /" myfile)
http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/starting.html#-S
http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/windows.html#:bad

Answer 9

Maybe this could help:
http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/windows.html

Answer 10

It's as simple as typing
vim /dir1/file1 /dir2/file1 /dir2/file2 ...
Once you're in vim, you can switch betwen then with ":n" to go to the next file, ":prev" to go to the previous file.

Answer 11

My searchInRuntime plugin has a :Sp and a :Vsp commands that'll do the trick when called banged. However, the files have to exist.