Linux – When using grep from VIM, how to jump to results

command linelinuxvim

When using the grep plugin to VIM, I can search the current directory for all occurrences of a string within a set of files, like this:

:grep Ryan *.txt

This outputs something like this:

file1.txt:3:Ryan was here
file2.txt:10:Ryan likes VIM
file3.txt:5:superuser.com is a fav of Ryan
(1 of 3): Ryan was here
Press ENTER or type command to continue

If I press enter, it just takes me back to my editor. What I really want to do is be able to open up one of those files and jump to the place where the string was found. Is there a way to do this? The 1 of 3 part makes me think there's a way to tab through the results, but I don't know what commands are available to me. Can anybody shed some light on this?

Best Answer

When you press ENTER, you should be looking at line 3 of file1.txt. To jump to the next match, execute :cn; to jump to the previous match, execute :cp. Executing :copen will open a window containing the list of matches. Move the cursor to the desired match and press ENTER to jump to that match.

For more on using :grep, see

:help grep
:help quickfix.txt

Typing :cn and :cp to move forward and backward in the quickfix list can be awkward, so I use these mappings:

nmap <silent> <C-N> :cn<CR>zv
nmap <silent> <C-P> :cp<CR>zv

Also, the :grep command is not a plugin; it's part of Vim.

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Concatenating files from multiple subdirectories

cat file1.txt folder1/file2.txt folder2/file3.txt > single.txt

Printing multiple files with lpr

The lpr man page states:

-hheader       Specify  a title to be used on the banner page (if any).
               Default title is the name of the file.

And nothing else concerning this (meaning, as it states: "Default title is the name of the file", as you didn't pass the -h parameter). So it looks like a misbehaviour, at least at first sight. On a second look, I notice your -p parameter:

-p             Add pr(1) style headers to each page (text only)

Taking a look at the pr(1) man page:

use a centered HEADER instead of filename in page header, -h  ""
prints a blank line, don't use -h""

My guess would be that this "centered header" is only calculated once, instead for each file separately. So you could try your both approaches without the -p parameter to check whether that introduces the problem -- or try a third approach:

for myfile in file*.txt; do lpr -p $myfile; done

which would invoke lpr for each file separately, and thus get you rid of the described problem.

Best Answer

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Concatenating files from multiple subdirectories

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