Source a vimrc from a webpage?

Question

I work with lots of different servers and would like to unify my vimrc across them all. I see that vim has the source command, which I'm assuming works similar to bash. In bash, to source a file from a webpage you go

. <(curl -s domain.com)

How can I do this with vim? I'm aware that I can instead apply each vim setting by adding an alias like so:

alias vim="vim +'colorscheme elflord'"

but I'd rather not pass thru all my settings like that. I don't want to have to create a file on the local server I'm on, hence the desire to instead source into the local session. Any ideas would be appreciated!

Answer 1

From :h -u:

-u {vimrc}  The file {vimrc} is read for initializations.  Most other
        initializations are skipped; see |initialization|.  This can
        be used to start Vim in a special mode, with special
        mappings and settings.  A shell alias can be used to make
        this easy to use.  For example:  
            alias vimc vim -u ~/.c_vimrc !*

So, when you want to start Vim with a custom vimrc, you can use:

$ vim -u {custom_vimrc}

But starting Vim like this will enable the 'compatible' option:

    Using the "-u" argument has the side effect that the
    'compatible' option will be on by default.  This can have
    unexpected effects.  See |'compatible'|.

… which is probably not what you want. To be sure 'compatible' is disabled, you can add the -N argument:

$ vim -Nu {custom_vimrc}

Finally, if your {custom_vimrc} file is not on your local machine but on the web, you can use a process substitution, which appears to be:

a form of redirection where the input or output of a process (some sequence of commands) appear as a temporary file.

One of the possible syntax using process substitution seems to be:

$ shell_command <( <LIST> )

… where <LIST> is a command list.

You could use this to make the output of the shell command curl url appear as a temporary file to vim -Nu. So, maybe you could start Vim from your shell with a command like this:

$ vim -Nu <(curl url)

For example:

$ vim -Nu <(curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tpope/vim-sensible/master/plugin/sensible.vim)

Answer 2

AFAIK, source doesn't let you source anything other than a file.

This function is a little bit dirty but it works:

function! GetAndSource(url)

  execute '!curl ' . a:url . ' -o vimrc.vim'
  source vimrc.vim
  execute '!rm vimrc.vim'

endfunction

command! -nargs=1 GS call GetAndSource(<f-args>)

This function will curl the file, source it and delete it afterwards.

Obviously you can execute each element separately, and it'll work the same.