While in vi how can I pull in / insert / paste the contents of another file

Question

• I am editing file 'A' in vi.
• I have another file 'B' whose contents I want to 'paste' into my current location.
• Other than actual mouse copy and pasting, is there a command that I can use that will pull in the content of another file to my current edit location.

Answer 1

Type the following

:r filename_to_paste

This will paste the contents of the file after the line on which the cursor is present.

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If you need to copy/paste smaller range of lines/block of text from one file to other, you can also do the following assuming one file is opened in vim already

• Open 2^nd file using :sp (split) or :vsp(vertical split)
• do a normal yy (yank) commands in the other file
• do p (paste) command back in the 1^st file, as the register (place where yanked text is stored) is common to both the files.
• Press Ctrl+w twice to switch between splited files.

Answer 2

That :r filename is the shortest for whole files. If you want only one more small portions, I always go to the source file and use "a57Y "b12Y to copy specific lines to registers (registers "a and "b in these examples), which I can retrieve with "ap and "bp in the destination file.

Answer 3

In insert mode, Press Ctrl + R and then =. Now, you are in command line mode and a 'equal to' sign is shown.

Type

      system('cat filename')

The content of another file 'filename' is pasted in next line of cursor.

Explanation:

Ctrl+R pastes the content of any register. = executes/evaluates the function/expression. Hence, you paste the output of the expression through Ctrl + R and =

cat is a Linux command which shows the content of a file.

Edit: this works in vim, not vi.