Is it possible to pipe an unsaved buffer to an external command and then replace the buffer by the command’s output?
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2 Answers
You can use the "filter" command,:!, which like most commands can be prefixed with a range:
:{range}!cmd
If you prefix this with a range, it will pipe those lines to the command's stdin, and replace those lines with the program's output. In this case you want to use % as the range, which means the entire buffer. For example:
:%!sort
You can find the Vim documentation with :help :range!.
answered Nov 9, 2015 at 19:52
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Very helpful. I use this to format long SQL queries to be more readable, e.g. open vim, paste the raw SQL string, then inside vim, I run
:%!sqlformat --reindent --keywords upper --identifiers lower -– EldamirMay 18, 2018 at 6:47
Yes that should be possible. One possibility: the system() function takes as optional argument the input to be used for the external command.
answered Nov 9, 2015 at 19:42
