Externally query a vim server to list the open buffers in it

Question

I'm on linux and I'm querying the list of files open in a gvim server so I can pull it up with

gvim --servername <name> --remote <file>

To do so, I wrote a helper function that returns buffers

function! returnbufferlist()
    execute "silent redir @m"
    execute "silent buffers"
    execute "silent redir END"
    "execute "<ESC><ESC>"
    let a=@m
    return a
endfunction

My external script loops through all gvim servers, and runs

gvim --remote-expr 'returnbufferlist()'

I check my filename against the list of buffers, and if it's open in the server, I run

gvim --servername <name> --remote <file>

as above. Is there a more efficient way of doing this? Is there a dbus interface that allows me to do the same thing more efficiently? Now I'm doing some regex matching that's trying to match my filename with the bufferlist, and this doesn't always work as intended since buffers are not listed with full paths.

Answer 1

You could use your own code to list the buffers, instead of execute "silent buffers":

for i in range(1, bufnr('$'))
  if buflisted(i)
    echo i . ' ' . fnamemodify(bufname(i), ':p')
  endif
endfor

Here fnamemodify() with ':p' will give you the full path to each filename.

The check for &buflisted will avoid listing buffers which have been closed, help buffers, and other buffers which have unlisted themselves, such as the MiniBufExplorer plugin.