Get name of the file we're editing in vim

Question

Hi.

I'm trying to find the name of the file I'm editing inside of vim. So I can use it to map F5 to compile this file, for testing purposes. Would of course be great if I could recognize the file format, and choose compiler accordingly, but realy not necessary. If I find the name of the file, I could do that myself. But I really can't find any way to get the name of the file I'm editing.

I know of the :make command, and have already mapped that, but for small scripts/testing programs, I really don't want to first have to write a simple makefile.

Thank you for all your help.

Answer 1

You can use the % character in shell commands to get the current filename with the extension. For example,

:!javac %

to run javac on the current file.

You can find out more with

:help filename-modifiers

Answer 2

Well, it's % as a substitution code inside things like :w. So :w blah% writes a copy of your file with 'blah' prepended. Or !!echo % replaces the current line with it. Dunno if that addresses your needs or not.

Answer 3

As others have already mentioned, % is expanded to the current file. If you want to get that string in vim script, use expand("%").

But you may want to simply set makeprg to something like "compiler-command\ %" and run :make - you gain quick-fix support that way. (open errors/warnings window with :copen)

Answer 4

I'm trying to find the name of the file I'm editing inside of vim.

For the current buffer this will give you name of the file,

echo "You're editing " bufname("%")

(just put it in some file.vim, and source it ":so %". But I don't think this is what you need.

So I can use it to map F5 to compile this file, for testing purposes. Would of course be great if I could recognize the file format, and choose compiler accordingly, but realy not necessary. If I find the name of the file, I could do that myself. But I really can't find any way to get the name of the file I'm editing.

You could do several things. If vim recognizes the filetype you're editing, you could map F5 to your compiler command and put that command in its specific ftplugin directory, so it will be valid only for that filetype. For example, you put

nmap <f5> :!compilername %<cr>

in cpp.vim, fortran.vim, python.vim ... (of course not the same command, you're not going to compile fortran with cpp compiler, you put fortrancompiler % in that case)

and that will be like you did in command prompt compilername file.cpp (the % gives the name of the current file you're editing)

That is one option. You could also try according to extension set autocmd commands in your vimrc so it recognizes the filetype according to extension of the file. This is all standard usage of vim, nothing uncommon. Now, I'm not sure how you'd like to go about this, so I'll just point you to Vim Wiki where you can find all kinds of articles that cover this (and also a few tips for some compilers).

I know of the :make command, and have already mapped that, but for small scripts/testing programs, I really don't want to first have to write a simple makefile.

Yes, that seems like overkill. Personally (when I'm on Win), I find simple batch file much easier to write for most things except big projects. If the program is in one or two files, I just compile it using some oneliner mapping.

Answer 5

The other points are very useful. I would add that you probably want to use :p, to ensure that the file name is passed as a fully qualified path. Without it, Vim may pass it as a path that is relative to Vim's current path, which may or may not be the same path as the compiler uses. So one solution is:

nnoremap <silent> <f5> :!javac %:p<cr>

If you want to detect the file type automatically you could use AutoCommand

autocmd FileType java       nnoremap <buffer> <silent> <f5> :!javac %:p<cr>
autocmd FileType cpp        nnoremap <buffer> <silent> <f5> :!gcc %:p<cr>