7

I have this mapping in my .vimrc

nnoremap <silent><leader>vlc :exe "!open -a vlc '".getline('.')."'"<CR>

It does work great with some files, but I'm getting error message with files that have single quote in it:

/Users/dude/Downloads/check/39min tpope's Vim Config and Plugins-MGmIJyTf8pg.mp4

The error message:

/bin/bash: -c: line 0: unexpected EOF while looking for matching `''

/bin/bash: -c: line 1: syntax error: unexpected end of file

shell returned 2

Press ENTER or type command to continue

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1 Answer 1

Reset to default
6

Rather than add quotes yourself, use the shellescape() function, which should take care or all edge cases:

:nnoremap <silent><leader>vlc :exe "!open -a vlc " . shellescape(getline('.'))<CR>

Another way is to use the %:S filename modifier:

:echo fnamemodify("Hello 'world", '')
Hello 'world

:echo fnamemodify("Hello 'world", ':S')
'Hello '\''world'

:echo expand('%')
hello 'world

:echo expand('%:S')
'hello '\''world'

In this particular case shellescape() probably makes more sense, but :S is useful especially when you want to combine it with other filename modifiers.

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4
  • Thank you very much for your awesome help. It does work perfectly ^^
    – whitesiroi
    Commented Aug 12, 2016 at 12:15
  • 3
    Don't you also need fnameescape()?
    – Sato Katsura
    Commented Aug 12, 2016 at 12:17
  • @SatoKatsura Thanks, I think you may be right and that this answer is wrong >_< No time to update it right now.
    – Martin Tournoij
    Commented Aug 12, 2016 at 12:41
  • 1
    This is more involved than it looks. You'd think that fnameescape(shellescape(...)) does the trick, but it doesn't. On UNIX you need at least something like this: escape(fnameescape(shellescape(...)), '&()'), but of course that won't work on Windows (I don't know the answer for Windows). This has to do with the way :! is implemented, and is the reason why syntastic switched from makeprg and friends to system() and lgetexpr. I'd be surprised if you could find a solution that actually works everywhere, across all sets of characters. :)
    – lcd047
    Commented Aug 12, 2016 at 17:01

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