Is there a way to detect if I'm recording in vimscript?

Question

Is there anything like

eval("is_recording()")

that I can call in my vimscript to find out if I am currently recording a macro? I would have thought this works:

eval("mode(1)")

but that just returns "n".

Not sure if it matters, but I am using neovim, so if it's exclusive to neovim, that is okay.

Answer 1

Firstly, I think that your problem is mainly a XY problem. You should give us more information about what you are trying to do in the end and I think we could find another solution.

Now here is a workaround, it is probably not ideal and certainly not very robust but you could add these lines to your .vimrc:

let g:isRecording = 0
nnoremap Q :call ToggleRecording()<CR>q

function! ToggleRecording()
    let g:isRecording = !g:isRecording
    echo "is recording " . g:isRecording
endfunction

The idea is that the "recording mode" is toggled exclusively when you press q in normal mode.

Based on that you create a variable g:isRecording which will be toggled each time you start or stop a recording. This way when you start recording g:isRecording will be set to 1 and to 0 when you stop recording. You can then access the recording state via the value of the variable.

The "drawback" is that to avoid recursive mapping, you'll have to use Shit-q to start and stop recording instead of q. (Note that it is not such a big problem: I've been using shift-q to toggle record mode for some time because I don't like the original shift-q behavior)

The main problem of this solution is that if you forgot about it and use q the variable will not be toggled but you can't disable q (e.g. with nnoremap q <nop>) because if you do the shift-q won't' work anymore.

Answer 2

This is a pretty curious request since there is no "mode" for recording a macro. After digging through some docs I found the following in usr_10

You start by moving to the first character of the first line. Next you execute the following commands:

qa Start recording a macro in register a.

^ Move to the beginning of the line.

i#include " Insert the string #include " at the beginning of the line.

$ Move to the end of the line.

a" Append the character double quotation mark (") to the end of the line.

j Go to the next line.

q Stop recording the macro.

The standout thing to me was the line about "Start recording a macro in register a"

Since each macro is going to be saved to a register by default I was hoping that we'd be able to see it in the :reg list. It turns out it works like a charm!

Example:

In normal mode: qaisomething<Esc>

and inside of :reg we see the entry!

"a   isomething^[

With that knowledge you should be able to "spy" on the registers to confirm that a macro is being recorded (use a named register on every recording [map q to always use the same register (or something like that )]

If you run into problems let me know and I'll try to help you out (since this functionality is new to me too :D)

edit To address the issue of a register being used during yank I'd recommend to look into a special type of register that you can use only for the vimL you are writing (no yank would ever be engaged on the register ("ay))

Here's a bit of info from :help registers on the available registers

There are ten types of registers: registers E354

1. The unnamed register ""

2. 10 numbered registers "0 to "9

3. The small delete register "-

4. 26 named registers "a to "z or "A to "Z

5. three read-only registers ":, "., "%

6. alternate buffer register "#

7. the expression register "=

8. The selection and drop registers "*, "+ and "~

9. The black hole register "_

10. Last search pattern register "/

Assuming that you have a register that you are going to use now the issue becomes "how do I know when recording has stopped?". To take care of this I'd take a look at the autocmd-event for CursorHold; the note in the help docs looks pretty promising (I'd try to figure out how I could differentiate normal cursorHold vs the idle/non-existant event that occurs when your register is being written to for the purposes of the macro)

CursorHold

When the user doesn't press a key for the time specified with 'updatetime'. Not re-triggered until the user has pressed a key (i.e. doesn't fire every 'updatetime' ms if you leave Vim to make some coffee. :) See |CursorHold-example| for previewing tags. This event is only triggered in Normal mode. It is not triggered when waiting for a command argument to be typed, or a movement after an operator. While recording the CursorHold event is not triggered. |q|