Intermediate Vim

Notes from this article: A Vim Guide for Intermediate Users

Buffer Commands

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To navigate through the buffer list, you can use these commands:

• :buffer <ID_or_name> - Move to the buffer using its ID or its name.
• bnext - :bn move to the next buffer
• :bprevious or :bp - move to the previous buffer
• :bfirst or :bf move to the first buffer
• :blast or :bl move to the last buffer
• CTRL-^ - switch to the alternate buffer. it’s indicated in your buffer list with the symbol: #
• <ID>CTRL_^ switch to a specific buffer with ID <ID>. For Example, 75CTRL-^ would switch to the buffer with ID 75.

you can also apply a command to all buffers with

:bufdo <command>

I feel like this could be really helpful for formatting files or automating mundane things that you can’t do outside of vim.

:bufdo examples

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Here are some examples of useful commands you can run with :bufdo in Vim:

The update command in Vim is used to save the current buffer to disk, but only if it has been modified. It’s a more efficient alternative to the write command when you’re not sure if changes have been made.

1. Search and replace across all buffers:

:bufdo %s/oldtext/newtext/g | update

2. Save all modified buffers:

:bufdo update

3. Convert all buffers to Unix line endings:

:bufdo set ff=unix | update

4. Add a line to the end of all buffers:

:bufdo $put='// End of file' | update

5. Remove trailing whitespace from all buffers:

:bufdo %s/\s\+$//e | update

6. Execute a macro named ‘a’ on all buffers:

:bufdo execute "normal! @a" | update

7. Set all buffers to a specific file type:

:bufdo set filetype=python

8. Close all buffers except the current one:

:bufdo bdelete | edit # | bdelete #

9. insert yml at line 0 for every file in your buffer List

:bufdo execute '0r header.yml' | write

As for Zsh commands, :bufdo is specific to Vim and not directly applicable to Zsh. However, you can use Vim’s :bufdo to execute shell commands on multiple files. For example:

9. Run a shell command on all open buffers:

:bufdo !zsh -c 'echo "Processing %"'

10. Use sed on all open buffers:

:bufdo !sed -i 's/old/new/g' %