configure vim to process argv and understand filename:linenumber

Question

Does vim expose an api for manipulating argv before the "main program" looks at it?

I want to be able to use the syntax:

$ vim /path/to/my/file:100

and have it mean the same thing as

$ vim +100 /path/to/my/file

if /path/to/my/file:100 does not itself exist.

I can potentially see writing a wrapper script that does something like the example below, but I would really prefer to keep the logic inside my .vimrc if possible.

#!/usr/bin/env perl
use strict;
use warnings;

my @args;

foreach my $x (@ARGV) {
    my $candidate = (not (-f $x)) and ($x =~ /:/);
    if ($candidate) {
        my ($path, $linum) = split /:/, $x, 2;
        push @args, ("+" . $linum, $path);
    } else {
        push @args, $x;
    }
}

exec "vim", @args;

Answer 1

You could write a dirty function for doing this for you:

au BufNewFile * nested call ReadFile()

func! ReadFile()
  let l:filename = expand('%:p')
  if l:filename =~ ':\d\+$'
    let l:number = matchstr(l:filename, ':\zs\d\+$')
    let l:filename = matchstr(l:filename, '^[^:]*')
    execute 'bd |  e! '. l:filename
    call cursor(l:number, 1)
  endif
endf

This is not beatiful and has some downfalls, but could get you started.

Credits to muru for the nested modifier!