How to auto-create a makefile in the same directory as i create a Latex file?

Question

When I create a .tex file using vim I get a nice template from having

autocmd BufNewFile *.tex 0r $HOME/.vim/templates/skeleton.tex

in my .vimrc. I also have a makefile-template in my home directory, but this one I have to manually copy to where the .tex file is. In a Linux environment, how can I auto-copy or auto-generate the makefile at the same time as I create a .tex file?

Answer 1

The normal ex command to do this would be

:!cp $HOME/.vim/templates/skeleton.makefile %:p:h

So you just need to add another autocmd (which will execute after the first)

autocmd BufNewFile *.tex silent !cp $HOME/.vim/templates/skeleton.makefile %:p:h

(the silent simply prevents the copy command from being printed on execution).

Answer 2

The portable answer would not use cp (which may overwrite a preexisting makefile) but the vim functions readfile() and writefile().

To trigger it, the best thing would be to define and execute a function that loads the first skeleton, and creates the Makefile on the fly:

" untested code
"
function! s:NewTeXPlusMakefile()
  let where = expand('%:p:h')
  " see mu-template's fork for a more advanced way to find template-files
  let skeletons_path = globpath(&rtp, 'templates')

  " the current .tex file
  let lines = readfile(skeletons_path.'/skeleton.tex')
  call setline(1, lines)

  " the Makefile, that MUST not be overwritten when it already exists!
  let makefile = where.'/Makefile'
  if ! filereadable(makefile)
    let lines = readfile(skeletons_path.'/skeleton.makefile')
    call writefile(lines, makefile )
  endif
endfunction

augroup LaTeXTemplates
  au!
  au BufNewFile *.tex call s:NewTeXPlusMakefile()
augroup END