Vim – Store a backup before each write

vimvimrc

I want to create a backup of the file I'm editing before each write. For example, if I am editing some file.txt, when I go to write the file with :w, I want vim to first save a backup of file.txt within a directory (i.e. ~/.vim_backups/) as file_2013-01-01_01-01-01.txt, where this represents YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM-SS.txt. I am aware of alternatives such as version control, but I'm curious if this is possible in vim.

Best Answer

This vim wikia article titled: Keep incremental backups of edited files, sounds like what you're looking for. There's this method which attaches a save routine so that it's mapped to the Esc key.

With the following mapping:
   fun! InitBex()
     let myvar = strftime("(%y%m%d)[%Hh%M]")
     let myvar = "set backupext=_". myvar
     execute myvar
     echo myvar
    endfun
    map <Esc> :call InitBex()<CR>
You can easily refresh the backupextension time everytime you hit the Esc key. So you can get backups every minute, every hour, every day and so on.

There are several other methods discussed in the Wiki topic.

Related Solutions

Vim editing/switching between multiple files efficiently in large directory structures

It's possible to set up vim to edit multiple files without having to exit at all. You use multiple buffers and switch between them. Since you're using vim inside screen You can put the following in your ~/.vimrc to enable that.

   set hidden
   syntax enable
   source $VIMRUNTIME/menu.vim
   set wildmenu
   set cpo-=<
   set wcm=<C-Z>
   map <F4> :emenu <C-Z>
   nmap <Esc>[5D :bp<CR>
   nmap <Esc>Od  :bp<CR>
   nmap <Esc>OD  :bp<CR>
   nmap <Esc>[5C :bn<CR>
   nmap <Esc>Oc  :bn<CR>
   nmap <Esc>OC  :bn<CR>
   nmap <Esc>[3~ :bd<CR>
   nmap ZZ :bd<CR>

Those key mappings map to Ctrl-Left and Right arrow keys to switch between buffers. The F4 key invoke the same menu the GUI would show. Pressing tab also now displays a little menu for selecting the completion when your press tab.

Customised vimrc for subfolders and projects

Central configuration

If it's okay to configure the local exceptions centrally, you can put such autocmds into your ~/.vimrc:

:autocmd BufRead,BufNewFile /path/to/dir/* setlocal ts=4 sw=4

On the other hand, if you want the specific configuration stored with the project (and don't want to embed this in all files via modelines), you have the following two options:

Local config with built-in functionality

If you always start Vim from the project root directory, the built-in

:set exrc

enables the reading of a .vimrc file from the current directory. You can place the :set ts=4 sw=4 commands in there.

Local config through plugin

Otherwise, you need the help of a plugin; there are several on vim.org; I can recommend the localrc plugin, which even allows local filetype-specific configuration.

^{Note that reading configuration from the file system has security implications; you may want to :set secure.}