Is it possible to execute a VIM script in a non-interactive mode?

Question

The Gnats bug tracker has a command (edit-pr) that opens a ticket in $EDITOR. My $EDITOR is VIM, and when this command opens the ticket in $EDITOR, I'd like to automatically perform some scripted edits without having to make any additional keystrokes.

Is there a way to write a VIM script that can be run non-interactively like this?

Answer 1

I've never used gnats, so it's hard to say what exactly edit-pr is expecting to be done. But from what you've given us, you could try changing the EDITOR env variable to a custom shell script, or maybe even a python script or something.

EDITOR=/path/to/script.(sh|py) edit-pr <args>

But like I said, I don't know what kind of edits it wants, or what needs to be done in the editor. Maybe if you gave us an example of what you'd want to automate?

Answer 2

Vim commands can be specified on the command line when you run the program like this:

vim file.txt "+:s/foo/bar/g"

You can keep adding commands by adding "+[cmd]" arguments. You can either end there and the editor will open, run those commands and wait or you, or you can add a "+:wq" to save and close the file.

You could also write a script using vimscript syntax and either wrap it in a function to call when the file opens or in a separate script to import and apply to the buffer using the syntax above.

Answer 3

Even though you've already received an answer to your question, others might find this useful.

Vim commands can also be specified in a file which is executed using the -s option:

    vim -s commands.txt file

Example:

    echo 'gg=G' > indent.txt
    echo ':wq' >> indent.txt
    vim -s indent.txt file

This will use Vim to indent the contents of file, save and exit.