open several files into same buffer

Question

I have several file paths saved in a register. I would like to open them all into the same new buffer. (as if I ran cat * files | vim - from command line.

As this is part of a plugin, I would like to do this all with vim script.

Answer 1

The :read command reads a file into the current buffer; although it only works for one file. You'll need to add a new command which calls :read in a loop:

command! -nargs=+ -complete=file Read
        \  for f in [<f-args>]
        \|    exe ':$read ' f 
        \| endfor

You need the $ range in read to tell it to append the file to the end of the buffer; by default the cursor stays in place, so the files will get intermixed.

You can also call glob() if you want to accept things such as *.vim; I added support for this in my little globedit.vim plugin.