Vi and Vim Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for people using the vi and Vim families of text editors. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
Occasionally I absentmindedly type :w when I'm reading something. This causes the modification time of the file to change and sometimes causes my build system to unnecessarily rebuild a substantial chunk of a project.
Is there a way to set vim to simply not do anything if I try to write a file and it hasn't been changed?
Extending @lcd047's answer you can use cabbrev to modify w
:cabbrev w <c-r>=(getcmdtype()==':' && getcmdpos()==1 ? 'up' : 'w')<CR>
When you type :w you will notice that it will be replaced with :up when you press return.
Not directly (that is, the behaviour of :w can't be changed), but you can learn to use :up instead of :w. It does exactly what you want.
:update instead of :write to obtain the Original Poster requirement.
Apr 14, 2015 at 21:10