Getting output from command in a vim buffer

vim

what i want to do

editing one file
run '!svn diff %' (or any other command that takes the current file name)
put the output on a new buffer (or tab)

bonus: not using a script, as i work often on hosts i do not manage to my liking.

My first try was: :tabnew | r !svn diff % which obvious does not work because % will be empty as it is parsed after the tabnew command.

Best Answer

This should work:

:tabnew | r !svn diff #

# references the previous buffer, i.e. the buffer you had open before the :tabnew was executed.

Even better is

:tabnew | set buftype=nowrite | r !svn diff #

because then vim won't complain when you close the tab, but this is already too much to type everytime.

Related Solutions

Write vim file as super-user

:w !sudo tee % >/dev/null`

Explanation: With !, you can execute programs. By prefixing it with :w, the file's content (the stuff you have in vim, not the original file, more precisly: the buffer) will be given to the command on standard input. % is replaced by the file name, and the >/dev/null avoids that the content is again printed to the screen (which is the usual behavior of tee).

I've found an even shorter way. dd does not print to stdout so you can save the null thing.

:w !sudo dd of=%

‍

Same is for :r, which inserts the output of the given command, so you can for example insert the current date into your file by using :r !date

How to pass vim buffer contents through shell command and capture the output to a split window

I would put something like this in my ~/.vimrc or a file with the .vim extension in ~/.vim/plugin/:

command! FW call FilterToNewWindow('myscript')

function! FilterToNewWindow(script)
    let TempFile = tempname()
    let SaveModified = &modified
    exe 'w ' . TempFile
    let &modified = SaveModified
    exe 'split ' . TempFile
    exe '%! ' . a:script
endfunction

Then you can just do ":FW".

It might be a good idea to change the command definition to require a filter script name argument to pass to the function instead of "hard coding" it.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Write vim file as super-user

How to pass vim buffer contents through shell command and capture the output to a split window

Related Question