Is it possible to rename the file I'm editing from within Vim? Currently what I do is exit Vim, rename the file and open from Vim again.
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1Related: stackoverflow.com/questions/1205286/… – muru Feb 4 '15 at 14:45
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I am interested to do this in neovim – Miguel de Val-Borro Nov 27 '15 at 22:36
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@MigueldeVal-Borro Just use vim-eunuch. It also works for Neovim. – jdhao Dec 11 '19 at 9:27
You could save the file under a different name using :w newname. But this operation won't remove the old file and the 'old' file stays in your buffer, so any changes will be applied to your 'old' file.
:saveas saves your new file and opens it in a new buffer. But it doesn't delete the old file.
I use tpope/vim-eunuch to :Move files.
:Move: Rename a buffer and the file on disk simultaneously.
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One downside of
:wor:saveasis that it will lose the execute permission if you were editing a script.netrwRename will keep the permissions. – wisbucky Sep 12 '19 at 23:01
You could drop to Netrw and rename the file there.
If the file you're editing is in the current directory, then do:
:edit .
Navigate to the file, press R, and change the name. Press Enter to edit the file.
There's a caveat though: the original buffer remains in the list of buffers. If you switch to it, it's empty.
If the file you're editing is in a different directory, you can change to the file's directory with:
:cd %:p:h
If you don't want to change the directory for the entire Vim session but only for the current buffer, then you can do instead:
:lcd %:p:h
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3
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I've been using the Rename2 plugin for this for years. It renames both the current buffer, and the file on disk:
:Rename {newname}
EDIT: I found this a .vimrc file on github:
function! RenameFile()
let old_name = expand('%')
let new_name = input('New file name: ', expand('%'), 'file')
if new_name != '' && new_name != old_name
exec ':saveas ' . new_name
exec ':silent !rm ' . old_name
redraw!
endif
endfunction
map <leader>n :call RenameFile()<cr>
The best way is to use :Move, as OrangTux said. For completeness, you can also perform terminal commands in vi editors using a bang (!) in command mode.
:!mv {current_file} {new_name}
:e {new_name}
However, this method doesn't remove the old buffer from your buffer list.
