Invoking external editor from Vi command line editing mode in zsh

command lineoh-my-zshvivimzsh

For some reason, I can't get the keybinding to invoke Vim (my editor) to work with Esc+v zsh when using iTerm.

I've gone back to a minimalist .zshrc file, to ensure it's not a plugin issue:

# If you come from bash you might have to change your $PATH.
export PATH=$HOME/bin:/usr/local/bin:/Users/user/go/bin:$PATH

export GOPATH=$HOME/go
export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/kubebuilder/bin

export EDITOR="/usr/bin/vi"

# Path to your oh-my-zsh installation.
export ZSH="/Users/user/.oh-my-zsh"

ZSH_THEME="gnzh"

source $ZSH/oh-my-zsh.sh

set -o vi

But when on the command line, I can't seem to use Esc+v to open the editor and I'm not sure why.

If I change my shell to bash, it works fine so it seems to be an issue with zsh.

Have also tried bindkey -v to no avail.

Best Answer

Directly copy-pasted from the zshcontrib(1) manpage (or info zsh edit-command-line):

autoload edit-command-line
zle -N edit-command-line
bindkey -M vicmd v edit-command-line

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Why is zsh (oh-the-zsh) completing directories that don’t exist

_kadmin is probably a completer function for the kadmin tool - not a directory. If you attempt completion on something that zsh can't find as a command, a directory or a valid and known command argument completion, it then starts to offer completion functions as possible expansion candidates. By default, zsh comes with a lot of completers, many of which you may not need - there are bundles for AIX, BSD, Cygwin, various Linux distributions, etc, and they all get read and installed into the shell. If you attempt an expansion on something zsh can't find, it has all those installed completion functions to offer you instead.

You configure zsh not to offer completer functions by putting this in your ~/.zshrc:

zstyle ':completion:*:functions' ignored-patterns '_*'

Reload the file and you should no longer be offered completion functions for tools you don't have installed. Have a look at the zshcompsys manpage for (a lot) more detail.

EDIT in reply to UPDATE 3

If _kadmin is actually a user account, you can configure zsh to not offer it in completions. It seems the approach is to list the user accounts you do want the shell to consider, which limits any names offered only to those listed. The zstyle line is something like this:

zstyle ':completion:*' users asgeo1 root

I think you can list as many users as you like after the users tag. The shell will then only offer those users' home directories as possible completions for the cd function or builtin.

I don't know why adding the username to the ignored-patterns in the completion.zsh file didn't work - did you reload your config after making the change?

Execute a command in zsh vim mode

The vicmd mode, despite the name, is for Vi's normal-mode commands. The prompt started by : isn't for Vi's ex-mode commands, but for running ZLE (Zsh's line editor) commands:

$ echo foo
execute: e_
edit-command-line          emacs-forward-word         end-of-history             end-of-line-hist           exchange-point-and-mark    execute-named-cmd          expand-history             expand-or-complete-prefix
emacs-backward-word        end-of-buffer-or-history   end-of-line                end-of-list                execute-last-named-cmd     expand-cmd-path            expand-or-complete         expand-word

Pressing Enter will work when a unique prefix has been entered (i.e, say you type ed, which matches edit-command-line, then Enter will work). You can press Tab to see matching commands.

Best Answer

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Why is zsh (oh-the-zsh) completing directories that don’t exist

Execute a command in zsh vim mode

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