40
$ vim -c 'set ai'
See :h -c, :h startup and $ vim --help.
34
To edit file non-interactively using ex (vi is the visual mode for ex), you can use +{command} or -c {command} parameters which allows you to execute the vi commands after the first file has been read.
The ex is a standard command-line editor (similar to ed).
There is also vipe (a Vim command pipe editor) should be used which is part of moreutils package ...
33
You can use the +startinsert option (or +star for short) to start Vim with insert mode.
vim +star myfile.txt
If you want this to happen by default when starting Vim, you can make an alias (in your .bashrc or .zshrc for example) as follows:
alias vim="vim +startinsert"
However, that works only when starting Vim. If you want Vim to be in Insert mode even ...
28
You have to use - in place of the file name on the command line:
echo This is example. | vim -
The above command will open an unnamed buffer filled with the text read from the standard input.
24
This happens when vim is invoked and it's connected to the previous pipeline's output, instead of the terminal and it's receiving different unexpected input (like NULs).
The same happens when you run: vim < /dev/null, so reset command in this case helps. This is explained well by grawity at superuser.
If you're using find to pass file names to edit, you ...
24
You need vim compiled with +clientserver, and then you can use the command:
vim --servername SERVER to start a vim instance, and
vim --servername SERVER --remote FILE to open the file in the named vim instance.
macOS only
MacVim runs a server by default - you can use
mvim --remote-tab-silent to open a file in a new tab in your existing MacVim instance,...
16
Vim started as a clone of vi and has almost all of the commands and features of the original vi, plus a lot of enhancements. (See :help design-compatible.) It can be compiled into one of basically five configurations: tiny, small, normal, big and huge. (See :help :version.) It can also be configured at run time to disable the extended features and use only ...
16
To insert the string "hello" on the first line of the file j, you could type in your shell the following command:
vim +"1 | put! ='hello'" j
:1 moves the cursor to the first line of the buffer
:put! ='hello' pastes the string "hello" above the current line
To insert the string "hello" and then save and quit the file:
vim +"1 | put! ='hello' | x" j
Same ...
16
From Vim FAQ 2.5:
vim -u NONE -U NONE -N -i NONE
This starts Vim in nocompatible mode (-N), without reading your
viminfo file (-i NONE), without reading any configuration file (-u
NONE for not reading .vimrc file and -U NONE for not reading a .gvimrc
file) or even plugin.
After opening Vim/gVim you can use :source <path> to load a test ...
14
$ vim -y <file>
-y Easy mode. Implied for |evim| and |eview|. Starts with 'insertmode' set and behaves like a click-and-type editor. This
sources the script $VIMRUNTIME/evim.vim. Mappings are set up to
work like most click-and-type editors, see |evim-keys|. The GUI is
started when available. {not in ...
12
Workaround suggestion: use a buffer as a filesystem navigator
Use the vim - command to read a list of paths from stdin. Vim's :help -- explains this:1
Start editing a new buffer, which is filled with text that is read
from stdin. The commands that would normally be read from stdin will
now be read from stderr. Example:
find . -name "*.c" -print | ...
12
Alternatively (the passing of directory argument(s) as in @EvergreenTree's answer relies on the autocmds of the netrw plugin, and aren't a general solution), you can pass any Ex command to Vim on startup via the -c argument:
$ vim -c Explore
You can also use +, which is exactly the same as -c, except slightly shorter:
$ vim +Explore
11
Did you try something like this?
$ echo "foo, bar, baz, and qux" | vim -
Or like that?
$ vim -c "put='foo, bar, baz, and qux'"
10
The "Explore Mode" you are talking about is netrw, a vim plugin which is provided by default. It should open in that "mode" if you just try to open a directory with vim, eg. vim foo/bar/baz/
10
Since you're on Ubuntu, verify if Vim is installed by running
dpkg -l | grep vim
Check the available alternatives to Vi by running
update-alternatives --list vi
Set your favorite alternative to Vi by running
update-alternatives --config vi
10
There are (at least) two possibilities:
use env:
EDITOR='/usr/bin/env VIM_LIGHT_MODE=1 vim'
use vim with another initialization file, say .vimrc-light:
EDITOR='/usr/bin/vim -u ~/.vimrc-light'
10
Expanding on @mMontu's answer; Vim hunts for initialization in order of that list till it finds one. Since the $VIMINIT variable take precedent to the .vimrc file, it satisfies the search and any other option after that is ignored.
The reason it still didn't work after:
$ VIMINIT=
$ echo $VIMINIT
Is (1) you're setting a local variable not an environment ...
10
Here is a way you can use normal-mode commands, rather than just ex commands, to edit a stream presented to Vim from stdin. This isn't a very useful example, but it illustrates the techniques involved. It assumes that your shell is bash.
echo "The brown fox jumped." | vim -s <(printf 'wcwred\e:wq! foo\n') -
The - at the end tells Vim to read text (not ...
9
To print buffer to shell standard output, vim needs to start in Ex mode, otherwise it'll open "normal" way with its own window and clear any output buffers on quit.
Here is the simplest working example:
$ echo foo | vim -e '+%print' '+q!' /dev/stdin
foo
or even shorter:
$ echo foo | ex +%p -cq! /dev/stdin
$ echo foo | ex +"%p|q!" /dev/stdin
Note: The ...
8
Use the -c argument to execute a command after Vim starts up:
vim -c ':help TOPIC' -c :only
You may want to define a shell function:
vimhelp () {
vim -c ":help $1" -c :only
}
answered Mar 7 '15 at 17:48
Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
1,7781 gold badge14 silver badges28 bronze badges
8
Besides reset, you can try:
stty sane
which should also make your terminal usable again.
See here for explanations.
And somehow this can be considered a vim misbehavior, at least Neovim doesn't have this issue at the moment.
8
For this purpose, I have definde the following alias in my shell:
alias lvim="vim -c \"normal '0\""
(l meaning last)
8
You probably misunderstood the documentation:
c. Four places are searched for initializations. The first that exists
is used, the others are ignored.
Thus if you are using the VIMINIT, the vimrc won't be loaded.
- The environment variable VIMINIT (see also |compatible-default|) (*)
The value of $VIMINIT is used as an Ex command line.
You are ...
7
-c doesn't execute keybinds in normal mode; it executes commands (what you normally do with :). So you need to use the execute command, which seems to work:
$ vim -c 'execute "normal \\t"'
We need the double \\ because we're issuing a shell command (and don't want
the shell to interpret this as an escape sequence).
Tested with the keybind:
nnoremap <...
7
You can see what Vim does on startup with vim -V. Does it touch the file? Is there any errors?
Safe for errors, my only guess is that filename contains non-ASCII character that looks like "c"; you might not notice it if you always autocomplete the name of the file instead of typing it out in its entirety.
7
The documentation for this feature can be found at :help -p:
Open N tab pages. If [N] is not given, one tab page is opened for every file given as argument. The maximum is set with 'tabpagemax' pages (default 10).
(emphasis mine)
So to increase the number of tab pages, add a line to your .vimrc, e.g.:
set tabpagemax=20
If you don't want to change ...
6
This is just mostly a fun note about bash and readline, but if you set your EDITOR environment variable to vim, hitting Ctrl+x+e will open up the current line in vim. Further, if you type Meta(Alt/Opt/Esc)+Ctrl+e, bash will perform an in place expansion on the current command line, i.e.:
$ echo $EDITOR # Assuming EDITOR was set
with Meta(Alt/Opt/Esc)+Ctrl+...
6
vim -p `find . -name '*.txt'`
Putting the find command between backticks executes find before running the full command and the results replace what's between the backticks. So before running the full command it will have this form vim -p result1 result2 ... resultN .
6
Here is what worked for me:
First opening vim normally and doing :scriptnames showed that, in fact, my ~/.vimrc was sourced. Other scripts were just overridding my indent settings.
Moving just the lines pertaining to indentation from my ~/.vimrc into a new file at ~/.vim/after/ftplugin/python.vim solved the problem. The filename is crucial, and it is ...
5
Although I think starting in insert mode is not the vim way, you can do this very easily. You should start vim with
vim -c startinsert 'file'
The -c flag passes in a command into vim. The :startinsert command changes to insert mode. As you can imagine, you could start vim with any number of commands if you so desired.
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
