Mac – Mapping a Piped Shell Command in Vim

macshellvim

In a previous question I asked about outputting evaluated code to a new window in MacVim. I got a great solution, but it presented another question: How can I map a key command in my .vimrc that involves piping output in the shell?

As a simple example, let's say I wanted to pipe the results of ls -a to a new MacVim window. From the Vim command line I can enter !ls -a | mvim -, and the results will appear in a new window. Great! Now, I add that to my .vimrc:

 nmap <Leader>r :w !ls | mvim -<CR>

Vim now throws an error every time I try to source my .vimrc, which reads as follows:

E492: Not an editor command:  mvim -<CR>

Any ideas on how to overcome this?

Best Answer

Try putting this in your ~/.vimrc file:

nmap <Leader>r :w !ls <bar> mvim -<CR>

nmap <Leader>r :w !ls \| mvim -<CR>

Related Solutions

Vim – How to Pass Vim Buffer Contents Through Shell Command and Capture Output

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.

Linux – How to Run Vim Command from the Shell

From the vim(1) man page:

+{command}

-c {command}

{command} will be executed after the first file has been read. {command} is interpreted as an Ex command. If the {command} contains spaces it must be enclosed in double quotes (this depends on the shell that is used). Example: Vim "+set si" main.c

Note: You can use up to 10 "+" or "-c" commands.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Vim – How to Pass Vim Buffer Contents Through Shell Command and Capture Output

Linux – How to Run Vim Command from the Shell

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