Vim shortcut to open a file under cursor in an already opened window

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In vim you can open a file under the cursor by using the gf command.

One can also easily open that file in a new split window by hitting <c-w> f. This is a really nice and time saving feature.

However, I can't figure out, how to open the file in an already opened split window (without creating a new one).

Best Answer

I got all the pieces together to do the trick. The best way is to create a custom mapping for all the commands:

 map <F8> :let mycurf=expand("<cfile>")<cr><c-w> w :execute("e ".mycurf)<cr><c-w>p

Explanation:

map <F8> maps on "F8" the commands that follow
let mycurf=expand("<cfile>") gets the filename under the cursor and saves it in mycurf
<c-w>w changes the focus to the next open split window
execute("e ".mycurf) opens the file saved in mycurf
finally <c-w>p changes the focus to the previous window (where we actually came from)

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According to the vim documentation, :q closes the current window and only quits if there are no windows left. In vim, windows are merely "viewports" where buffers can be displayed. The vim documentation itself sums this up quite nicely. From :help window:

A buffer is the in-memory text of a file.
A window is a viewport on a buffer.
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If you have the hidden option set, closing a window hides the buffer but does not "abandon" it, so vim is still keeping track of the contents. With 'hidden' set, when you "reopen" the file, you are simply re-showing/un-hiding the buffer, not actually re-opening the file on disk.

For more information take a look at

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How to open a file in VIM in readonly mode if it already has a swapfile

If you have vim >= 7 (I think) you can use autocmd with an event SwapExists. There you can do all from very simple things to very complicated.
Here is a simple example to put in your ~/.vimrc:

autocmd SwapExists * let v:swapchoice = "o"

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If v:swapchoice gets a value in an autocmd it will not prompt you what you want to do. The values you can use is listed here v:swapchoice.
For a very advanced autocmd see here: editexisting.vim
The script there can already be on your server from the installation of vim, search for editexisting.vim.

Best Answer

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