How can I suppress the "reading from STDIN" message from within Vim?

Question

When using Vim to read from stdin, it prints a informative message:

$ echo foo | vim -
Vim: Reading from stdin...

$

This is just an example. The actual use doesn't allow shell constructs. vim <(echo foo) is not an option.

Can I suppress that using only Vim options and/or vimrc settings?

---

In case you do need to know what this is for, I'm trying to use Vim for reading manpages (shameless plug). GNU man doesn't allow shell constructs in MANPAGER, and by using ftplugin/man.vim and other things, I have successfully managed to have a comfortable experience using just MANPAGER="vim -". The last remaining annoyance is the unsightly message printed after every manpage that I viewed.

Answer 1

Starting with Vim 8.0.1308 (Nov 2017), you can use the "--not-a-term" option with "quit":

$ echo hello | vi - --not-a-term -esc '%p|q!'
hello

Or with "exit":

$ echo hello | vi - --not-a-term -esc 'x!/dev/stdout'
hello

http://github.com/vim/vim/issues/1552

Answer 2

The answer to your exact question:

Can I suppress that using only Vim options and/or vimrc settings?

is: no, it's not possible because of the following part of the code

    if (read_stdin)
    {
#ifndef ALWAYS_USE_GUI
        mch_msg(_("Vim: Reading from stdin...\n"));
#endif

which means that if you give - as argument to vim, then it'll mechanically show that message.

though, as a work around, if you use a file redirection instead of the - argument you'll get rid of the message:

echo "foo" | vim < /dev/tty

and here's an example of MANPAGE setting that just works™ (taken from the intertubes):

export MANPAGER='bash -c "vim -MRn -c \"set ft=man nomod nolist nospell nonu\" -c \"nm q :qa!<CR>\" -c \"nm <end> G\" -c \"nm <home> gg\"</dev/tty <(col -b)"'

Answer 3

In Vim, this issue has been addressed in 234d162 commit (>=v8.0.1387).

Solution: Don't show the message with --not-a-term was used.

So the message is only displayed when user hasn't redirected the stdin.

---

Similar issue has been addressed in the recent version of Neovim (>=v0.2.2-dev) which you could use instead of Vim.

Once NVim v0.2.2 is released, you should be able to run:

$ echo foo | nvim -

without having the message.

Answer 4

1. With vim of version 8.0.1387 and newer you can use --not-a-term option.

2. For older version use the following trick: $ echo foo | bash -c 'vim < /dev/tty <(cat)'

The first argument /dev/tty somehow tricks Vim to think the input comes from the keyboard. I guess, that's because isatty(3) returns True for that file. And the second argument simply passes-through everything from its standard input to Vim's standard input. Finally, bash -c prefix is required for the special construct <(...) to work if the shell doesn't support it. In bash the original solution can be simplified to $ echo foo | vim < /dev/tty <(cat)