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I can use % to get the name of the focused window for commands. How can I get a space-separated list of all buffers for use in a command?

For example, I would like to call

:!cat [all]

where [all] is something that evaluates to what I want.

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    Hi. Welcome to Vi/Vim SE. Either :args or :buffers/:ls depending on what value you have for :set hidden? :) Less cryptically, do you navigate files mostly with :next/:prev or other means? – B Layer Aug 27 '19 at 10:36
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    I use :e having :set hidden. I hope my edit clarifies what I mean, thank you. – August Janse Aug 27 '19 at 11:29
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    for the argument list, have a look at :h :_## – Christian Brabandt Aug 27 '19 at 11:58
  • where [all] is something that evaluates Note that the whole line after ! is simply passed to the shell. You have either to use execute, or pass the value inside an environment variable (so shell can expand it). – Matt Aug 27 '19 at 12:03
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    @AugustJanse It's a "special" (:h cmdline-special). Yes, the specials get expanded as a step separate from normal evaluation. So they are pretty much restricted. Therefore, you'll have to use :execute very often (that's a sort of "eval operator" for Vim). Another possible alternative is the expression register (<C-R>=), but an interactive input is not always convenient. – Matt Aug 28 '19 at 8:14
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I suppose by "open files" you mean active buffers (see :h windows-intro). That could be achieved with the command :ls a (use h-flag to get hidden buffers if needed).

To pack it into a function you could use a redirection or a dedicated getbufinfo() interface. For example

function! GetActiveBuffers()
    let l:blist = getbufinfo({'bufloaded': 1, 'buflisted': 1})
    let l:result = []
    for l:item in l:blist
        "skip unnamed buffers; also skip hidden buffers?
        if empty(l:item.name) || l:item.hidden
            continue
        endif
        call add(l:result, shellescape(l:item.name))
    endfor
    return l:result
endfunction

" the result is a list
" use join() when a single string is needed
":exec '!cat' join(GetActiveBuffers())
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    instead of parsing the output of :ls, you can use the getbufinfo() function – Christian Brabandt Aug 27 '19 at 12:42
  • @ChristianBrabandt Thank you. I knew there must be something like this... – Matt Aug 27 '19 at 13:12
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    With :!cat $myargs you're likely to run into escaping issues (it's actually probably going to ruin your use of shellescape()!) Much better is :execute '!cat' join(GetActiveBuffers()), which would assemble the command-line in Vim, rather than use a variable expansion in the spawned shell. (Hint: test it with files containing spaces and special characters and you'll see the difference.) – filbranden♦ Aug 27 '19 at 15:00
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    @filbranden Yes, you're right. It turns out that it's quite hard to escape the things in the right way. exec looks easier to deal with. – Matt Aug 27 '19 at 15:46

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