how to conceal filename and line number in quickfix window

Question

Context

Say in vim, after :grep text *, then :copen, then cursor in a quickfix window, which has contents like below

some-very-very-very-long-path/file1.txt|1 col 46| some text
some-very-very-very-long-path/file2.txt|84 col 34| another text
some-very-very-very-long-path/file3.txt|243 col 29| yetanother text

Problem

How to conceal the filename and line column number at the beginning of each line?

Answer 1

You can use the conceal feature for this.

Add the following to the file ~/.vim/after/syntax/qf.vim (first creating the file if necessary):

syntax match ConcealedDetails /\v^[^|]*\|[^|]*\| / conceal
setlocal conceallevel=2
setlocal concealcursor=nvic

The first line sets up a syntax item to conceal anything that matches the regular expression.

The second line informs Vim that you want to hide any concealed items that don't have a replacement cchar set.

The third line makes it so that the text is always concealed, whatever mode you are in.

The regular expression I used presumes that your file names/paths won't ever contain a | character. If they do, you'll need to adjust your regular expression to account for this.

Further details:

• :help conceal
• :help 'conceallevel'
• :help 'concealcursor'

Answer 2

While the other answers here have all the necessary pointers ever needed, I think there is lacking a comprehensive solution IMHO.

Below is a ready-to-paste in your .vimrc (or equivalent)

au BufReadPost quickfix :call ConcealPath() 

function ConcealPath()
       syntax match ConcealedPath /\v^\/[^|]*\// conceal cchar=&
       setlocal conceallevel=2
       setlocal concealcursor=nvic
       setlocal nowrap 
endfunction

function UnconcealPath()
       setlocal conceallevel=0
       setlocal wrap
endfunction

More than being a comprehensive answer, it is a more general solution.

You are now equipped to hide similar "long paths" without any file-edits, any where in vim (not just in a quickfix window), using

:call ConcealPath()

and revert/unhide using

:call UnconcealPath()

NOTE-1: The use of set wrap and set nowrap is only for aesthetics that I liked in my usage

NOTE-2: You can also conveniently map your favourite keys to reduce typing in case you need frequently using the function calls

NOTE-3: All this works only when you notice +conceal is present in your :version (or vim --version from terminal). So -conceal will knock you off this deal. Neovim (nvim) on the other hand, will not suffer from this issue due to its philosophy of all-possible features always-on.

Answer 3

according to quickfix.txt and the answer by Rich, following works:

au BufReadPost quickfix  setlocal modifiable
            \ | silent exe 'g/^/s/\v^[^|]*\|[^|]*\| //'
            \ | setlocal nomodifiable