Vim: Pipe selected text to shell cmd and receive output on vim info/command line

Question

I want to pipe the selected text to a shell command and receive the one-line output from this shell command on the vim info/command line?

What I'm really trying to do: Pipe the selected text to a pastebin-type shell command and I want to receive the output of the shell cmd (which is the http link to the pastebin). Is this possible?

Answer 1

Maybe you should use something like

:echo system('echo '.shellescape(@").' | YourCommand')

Answer 2

Use :!<shell cmd>

Answer 3

I would do it like this:

Place this function in your vimrc:

function Test() range
  echo system('echo '.shellescape(join(getline(a:firstline, a:lastline), "\n")).'| pbcopy')
endfunction

This will allow you to call this function by doing:

:'<,'>call Test()

Then you can also map that like this (just under the function declaration in your vimrc):

com -range=% -nargs=0 Test :<line1>,<line2>call Test()

So you can call the function doing this:

:'<,'>Test

Note: :<','> are range selectors, in order to produce them just select the pertinent lines in visual mode and then go to command mode (pressing the colon key)

Answer 4

Simply highlight the lines using visual line select shift-v, the hit :! and type the command you wish to send the commands to. The resulting output will then replace your selected text.

When you type your command it will appear at the bottom as:

:'<,'>!somecmd

the '<,'> is indicating that the range you have visually selected will be passed to the command specified after the !

Answer 5

Another answer:

function Pastebin() range
    let savedreg=@"
    silent execute a:firstline.",".a:lastline."yank"
    python import vim, subprocess
    python p=subprocess.Popen(["pastebin"], stdin=subprocess.PIPE, stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
    python p.stdin.write(vim.eval('@"'))
    let @"=savedreg
    python p.stdin.close()
    python retstatus=p.poll()
    python print p.stdout.read()
endfunction

Requires python support. Use it just like matias' function.