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I'm currently exploring ways to iterate through all buffers in vim and am confused by the behavior of NERDTree.
I displayed the NERDTree directory tree and expected that the viewport is bound to some buffer. But the :ls command did not show the buffer that is diplayed in the NERDTree's viewport:
Is the viewport on which NERDTree displays the directory tree bound to some buffer? If no, how does NERDTree display the content?
NERDTree does a great many things that are... unvim-like... in order to give the IDE “project drawer” experience. I consider most of them hacks, and I’m wary of a plugin which has to hack around default behaviors and usages to do something I don’t need (see Oil and Vinegar).
All of that said, one of its hacks is actually quite normal—it’s an unlisted buffer (I believe). You can check the 'buftype' option, or use :ls!.
Netrw actually does similar things most of the time, regarding unlisting buffers. It’s convenient not to have “non-file” buffers not appear in the regular buffer list.
