A script and keybindings to look for VIM commands in a file, and then execute them on that file

Question

This is a followup question to Auto sorting of lists of include files, which explains the motivation.

EDIT I am looking for a script and/or keybindings to look for VIM commands in a file, and then execute them on that file. As mentioned in the referenced question, the idea is that the script and the key bound to it, will do the following: Look for lines that obey a certain patter in a file. E.g.,

'// vim: some vim command

and execute these in sequence.

Answer 1

A possible solution is to add the following lines to your .vimrc

" mapping to execute the function
nmap <F4> :call ExecuteCommandsFromFile()<CR>

function! ExecuteCommandsFromFile()
    " The pattern which will indicate the commands
    let l:pattern="'// vim: "
    let l:res=1

    " Go to the first line of the file
    normal gg

    " While some commands are found in the file
    while search(l:pattern, "We") != 0

        " Get the position of the text representing the command
        let l:start=col('.')
        let l:end=col('$')

        " Get the command
        let l:line=strpart(getline('.'), l:start, l:end)

        " Execute the command
        execute l:line
    endwhile

endfunction

Notes

• You can replace <F4> by any key you want to use to start the function
• The variable l:pattern can be changed to match the pattern you'll use to indicate that the line contains a command to execute
• The search command in the whileloop uses the flag W not to wrap around the file and thus executing the commands only once.

Edit

I made this according to what I understood from the question but if the solution doesn't really fit your needs don't hesitate to give more details so that I can adapt the solution.

Edit 2

I thought it could be interesting to execute the commands after parsing all the file instead of executing it as soon as the command is read. So here is a second version where the function firstly get all the commands and then execute them:

function! ExecuteCommandsFromFile2()
    " The pattern which will indicate the commands
    let l:pattern="'// vim: "
    let l:res=1

    " Go to the first line of the file
    normal gg

    " The list will contain the commands to execute
    let l:commands = []

    " While some commands are found in the file
    while search(l:pattern, "We") != 0

        " Get the position of the text representing the command
        let l:start=col('.')
        let l:end=col('$')

        " Get the command
        let l:line=strpart(getline('.'), l:start, l:end)

        " Add the command to the list
        call add(l:commands, l:line)
    endwhile

    " Execute each command
    for l:command in l:commands
        execute l:command
    endfor
endfunction

A possible evolution would be to refactor both of the function to get only one accepting an argument describing the mode to use...