How to execute a shell command with the current buffer content and open a new split buffer with the command output?

Question

I have an external command which accepts a SQL. I want to execute it within vim while editing SQL. I found two ways but both are not very satisfying.

:w !<cmd> This passes the content of the current buffer to <cmd> and outputs the result. However, because the result is shown in vim command line area, if the result is long I cannot scroll up/down the result.
:%! <cmd> This replaces the current buffer content with the cmd output, this is not what I want because I want to preserve the SQL.

If I can see the output in a new horizontal split buffer, it would be very nice. Is there any way to do so?

D. Ben Knoble · Accepted Answer · 2022-03-07 13:07:44Z

1

Try :terminal <command> % (make sure to save the buffer first).

answered Mar 7, 2022 at 13:07

D. Ben Knoble♦

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Thanks Ben! The terminal window is really satisfying. I wanted to pass the buffer content, not a filename. But this can be achieved by :terminal sh -c "cat % | <cmd>".
– jyshin
Mar 8, 2022 at 1:22
@jyshin programmatically you could also use term_start() with in_io set to "buffer" and in_buf the buffer number.
– D. Ben Knoble ♦
Mar 8, 2022 at 15:01

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Matt · Accepted Answer · 2022-03-07 08:14:23Z

1

:new +put=system('foobar',0)

Or

Ctrl-Wn"=system("foobar", 0)EnterP

See :h :put, :h system(), :h quote=.

answered Mar 7, 2022 at 8:14

Matt

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2 Answers 2