Calling into a shared object on a key-sequence from vi/Vim

Question

I have a shared library (in binary form; I have the source) that I use to invert/cycle between symbols in source files in Visual Studio.

I would like to be able to use the same functionality in vi and/or Vim.

Specifically, what I'd like to do is the following scenario:

• the cursor is on a word
• I press a key-sequence, e.g. CTRL-I
• vi/Vim works out the whole of the word I'm on
• vi/Vim invokes my shared library, passing the word, and receiving the invert/cycle replacement
• vi/Wim replaces the original word with the new word

I don't have any clue if/how to get vi/Vim to do this, and I'm not having any luck searching.

Any advice gratefully received ...

Answer 1

Try

inoremap <C-i> <esc>"hciw<C-R>=libcall('path/to/your.dll', 'func', @h)<CR>

What it does:

• create map for insert mode <Ctrl+i>
• <esc> switch to normal mode "hciw move word under cursor into the register h
• <C-r>= insert into cursor position result of the next expression
• libcall(...) calls function in the run-time library.
• @h is the value of the 'h' register.

In case you want to use simple binary that can be ran from the command line you can use

inoremap <C-i> <esc>"hciw<C-R>=substitute(system('mybin --word='.@h), "\n", '', 'g')<CR>

Answer 2

I don't know how to call a shared library from normal vim scripts, but if you can create a python wrapper for your library and you're using vim version greateri than 7, you might do it calling a python script within vim.
First of all, check if you have python support enabled: type

:version

inside vim to list the available features; if it has python support, you should see a '+python' somewhere (a '-python' otherwise). If you do not have python enabled, you may refer to this post to compile vim with python support.

Then, you could could map a key to call a python function with the word currently under the cursor:

python << EOF
import vim
import MySharedLibraryPythonBinding

def MyFunction():
    # get word under cursor
    x = vim.eval('expand ("<cword>")')
    # get replacement
    MySharedLibraryPythonBinding.GetReplacement(x)
    # replace contents (you'll need some work here...)
    vim.current.line = "add something sensible here..."
EOF

nmap <F3> :py MyFunction( expand("<cword>") )<CR>

This is not of course a fully working solution, but I hope it will put you on the good route.

Answer 3

There are many ways to do it (:h expand(), ...). One of them is the following)

:nnoremap triggerkeysequence ciw<c-r>=libcall('path/to/your.dll', 'your_function',@")<cr>

BTW: <c-i> is <tab>, are you sure you want to override the action on this key?