Is there a way to change the "current buffer"--the one that gets defined when I use "n" and "N"?

Question

Once in a while I do work on a large number of files (i.e. today it was about 1,700) using a command such as:

gvim `find . -name *.cpp`

and I use the "n" (no changes) or "wn" (made a change) to go through all my files.

Once in a while I notice I missed something and would like to restart at a certain position. Is there a way to reset that buffer position? I found that I could use a <count>:n or <count>:N but that's not as practical as specifying that this or that specific buffer should now be the one (i.e. I have to do the math...)

Answer 1

With :n you are going through the argument list. You can use :args to see where you are in the current argument list. You can use :first to start at the beginning and use :last to go to the last argument. You can also use :previous to go to the previous argument. To add files to the argument list you can use the :argadd and argedit command. And finally if you want to be at a specific argument, use :Nargu command (e.g. to edit the third file from your argument list, use :3argu.

Note, there is also the bufferlist, which is independent of the argument list. You can move through the buffer list using :bnext and similar commands.

Read the detail about it at :h arglist and :h 07.2