How to effectively work with multiple files in Vim

Question

I\'ve started using Vim to develop Perl scripts and am starting to find it very powerful.

One thing I like is to be able to open multiple files at once with:

<

Answer 1

When using multiple files in vim, I use these commands mostly (with ~350 files open):

• :b <partial filename><tab> (jump to a buffer)
• :bw (buffer wipe, remove a buffer)
• :e <file path> (edit, open a new buffer>
• pltags - enable jumping to subroutine/method definitions

Answer 2

:ls

for list of open buffers

• :bp previous buffer
• :bn next buffer
• :bn (n a number) move to n'th buffer
• :b <filename-part> with tab-key providing auto-completion (awesome !!)

In some versions of vim, bn and bp are actually bnext and bprevious respectively. Tab auto-complete is helpful in this case.

Or when you are in normal mode, use ^ to switch to the last file you were working on.

Plus, you can save sessions of vim

:mksession! ~/today.ses

The above command saves the current open file buffers and settings to ~/today.ses. You can load that session by using

vim -S ~/today.ses

No hassle remembering where you left off yesterday. ;)

Answer 3

Things like :e and :badd will only accept ONE argument, therefore the following will fail

:e foo.txt bar.txt
:e /foo/bar/*.txt
:badd /foo/bar/*

If you want to add multiple files from within vim, use arga[dd]

:arga foo.txt bar.txt
:arga /foo/bar/*.txt
:argadd /foo/bar/*

Answer 4

If you are going to use multiple buffers, I think the most important thing is to set hidden so that it will let you switch buffers even if you have unsaved changes in the one you are leaving.

Answer 5

I would suggest using the plugin

NERDtree

Here is the github link with instructions.

Nerdtree

I use vim-plug as a plugin manager, but you can use Vundle as well.

vim-plug

Vundle

Answer 6

You can be an absolute madman and alias vim to vim -p by adding in your .bashrc:

alias vim="vim -p"

This will result in opening multiple files from the shell in tabs, without having to invoke :tab ball from within vim afterwards.