I'm trying to write a simple mapping that will pre-populate the vim ex command line but leave the user there to execute the command on their own.
The use-case is for the user to type <leader>/foo which would then open the command line with :e **/foo and the user could either further refine, press ctrl-d to see possible matches, etc
That kind of mapping is very, very common:
nnoremap <leader>/ :edit **/*
Might I suggest the following slightly smarter alternative?
set path=.,**
nnoremap <leader>/ :find *
The 'path' option tells Vim to look for files matching the argument given to :find in the directory of the file associated with the current buffer and any subdirectory of the working directory.
Reference:
:help :find
:help 'path'
:edit **/foo, your are somewhat restricted to files located below the working directory. With :find, you are restricted to the directories specified in 'path', which may or may not be under the working directory.
* necessary at the end of the find command? I tried using that, and when I hit tab after typing a few characters in, it shows the results, then removes the star.
Commented
May 31, 2015 at 16:39
:find bar only finds files whose name starts with bar but :find *bar also finds files containing bar anywhere in their name. Note that this rule also applies to :edit and all related commands.
You may also want to check :h :map-<expr>. While admittedly in this case it would be overkill, it enables mappings of the following type:
function! PopulateFooMap(c)
let dict = { "r":"bar", "z":"baz" }
return ":e **/" . get(dict, a:c, a:c)
endfunction
" very powerful
nnoremap <expr> <leader>/ PopulateFooMap(nr2char(getchar()))
" but this would still take precedence
nnoremap <leader>/f :e **/foo
