How to open another file in background Vim from Bash command-line?

Question

I am transitioning from using Gvim to console Vim.

I open a file in Vim, and then suspend Vim, run a few commands on the command-line and then want to return to Vim.

• Ctrl+Z (in normal mode) suspends Vim and drops back to the console
• fg can be used to return focus to Vim
• jobs lists background jobs and can be used to get the job number to bring a given job to the foreground (e.g., fg %2 to bring job 2 to the foreground).

However, when Vim is in the background and I issue vim file, the file opens in a new instance of Vim.

I'm used to using the --remote option with Gvim to open a file in an existing Gvim instance.

Question:

• How can I open another file in a background Vim from the command-line?
• Is this a reasonable workflow for moving between console and Vim?

Update:

I just read this answer by @jamessan which provides a few ideas. He shows the following code snippet:

vim --servername foo somefile.txt
:shell
<do stuff in your shell>
vim --servername foo --remote otherfile.txt
fg

However, I'd have to think about how to make it easier to use perhaps with some aliases.

• Would this be a good approach?
• How could it be made efficient to use?

Answer 1

This is also what I need. I found this thread, though no satisfying approach, happy to see people having same requirement like me.

My approach is

add below to .bashrc

v() {
    vim_id=`jobs|sed -n "/vim/s/\[\([0-9]\)\]+.*/\1/p"`
    if [ -n "$vim_id" ]; then
        echo "tabedit $@" > ~/.vim_swap/e.vim && fg $vim_id
    else
        vim $@
    fi
}

add below to .vimrc

nnoremap <silent> <space>e :source $HOME/.vim_swap/e.vim<Bar>:call writefile([], $HOME."/.vim_swap/e.vim")<CR>

Then v foo.c to open first file, editing..., ctrl-z to suspend vim, do shell stuff, v bar.h to bring vim foreground.

And in VIM, press <Space>e to tabedit bar.h.

So the idea is to generate vim command from shell command, save them to a temp .vim file. In VIM, map key to source the .vim file and clear it.

Answer 2

Instead of running vim again, you need to bring your current vim process to the foreground (with fg) and open the file in vim.

I have not used it much, but you may find the "vim server" feature (see --remote*, --servername, etc. options) lets you open the file from your shell into an existing, backgrounded vim. However, ctrl-z suspends the process instead of allowing it to continue to run in the background, and you will need to put that vim into the background so it can respond as a "vim server". Use the shell's bg command to do that.

Answer 3

I would just call vim from fg and open new file inside vim since its just seems to be faster (although it may be just faster to me). To work with multiple files inside vim you need to use command edit (in vim): :e [filepath/]filename and you walk true buffers (all files will be as vim buffers) with ^I (ctrl+I) and ^O (ctrl+o)

It works on both GTK and shell versions. There is no such a huge difference on workflow. I prefer shell version since i do most of commands there (compiling launching etc.).

Answer 4

If you use tmux, and if you always have your vim instance running as the first job in background, you can setup alias like below in csh.

alias v 'tmux send-keys fg Space +1 Enter :e Space `realpath \!:1` Enter'

then you can call it like this

v myfile.txt

If your vim instance is not the first background job, enrich the alias with jobs output.

In Bash, this can be done with a function.

function v() {
    local job=$(jobs | perl -ne 'print $1 if /\[(\d+)\].*vim/')
    if [[ -n $job ]]; then
        tmux send-keys fg Space $job Enter
        for f in $*; do
            tmux send-keys :e Space `realpath $f` Enter
        done
    else
        vim $*
    fi
}