Using -c command line option for Vim 7.4 on Windows produces errors

Question

The following commands work fine when I issue them from the command mode in Vim:

:%s/\(^\s\+\)\(\S\+.*)\s*\){$/\1\2\r\1{/g
:g/^\s*\/\/$/d

But when I run the above commands as a script as below:

vim -c "commands.vim" myfile.c

I get errors:

Note: I am aware of this question: How to use "-c" command line option? but it has not helped with the error.

Answer 1

Vim's -s {scriptin} command line argument^* allows you to supply a file the contents of which will be interpreted as if you had typed them in, character by character.

This can be used for normal mode commands, but because you also generally enter command-line mode commands by typing them in, it works fine for ex commands too, so long as you include the colons at the start of each line (as you have).

vim -s commands.vim myfile.c

See :help -s for more details.

_{* Not to be confused with Vim's other -s argument, which only applies when ex mode is also specified: see :help -s-ex}

Answer 2

Based on comment from ChristianBraband, I found a solution, with help from this page: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Learning_the_vi_Editor/Vim/Modes

Modify the commands.vim script so that file update and quit are included at the end:

:%s/\(^\s\+\)\(\S\+.*)\s*\){$/\1\2\r\1{/g
:g/^\s*\/\/$/d
:update
:quit

Run from the command line as follows:

vim -c "source commands.vim" myfile.c

Update: Removed the unnecessary -E option per comment from @Rich.