Open a new window in Vim-embedded python script

Question

I've just started wrapping my head around vim+python scripts (having no experience with native vim scripts).

How can I open a new window to contain the stdout from a background process?

Currently, after reading some :help python, the only option I see is something like:

cmd = ":bel new"
vim.command(cmd)

Sure you mean window? A window is simply a viewport onto a buffer. Do you want to, say, split the current window into two, and load the stdout of some command into a new buffer in this window? — Sarah
– Sarah, Commented Nov 3, 2010 at 10:43
@Sarah: I noticed that too, but wasn't sure how to better phrase it. The latter of what you said makes sense. — Roger Pate
– Roger Pate, Commented Nov 3, 2010 at 11:01
In that case there's no need to resort to scripting. All you have to do is :new +read\ !ls ... Remember to escape all spaces. :new splits the window, creates an empty buffer and runs read !ls on it. Replace ls with something useful. — Sarah
– Sarah, Commented Nov 3, 2010 at 11:10
@Sarah: bua is already writing a Python script for some other reason and needs to do this from within that script. (At least how I understand it.) — Roger Pate
– Roger Pate, Commented Nov 3, 2010 at 11:14

Sarah · Accepted Answer · 2010-11-06 00:39:48Z

3

+100

Since vim.command can execute most (if not all?) ex commands, you can simply call :new +read!ls from within it.

:new splits the current window and puts a new (empty, no name) buffer into the upper window. It takes an argument +[cmd] which we use to execute read!cmd which reads the stdout of cmd after the bang into the buffer. Be aware that you need to escape spaces in your command with \

All in all you get vim.command("new +read!cmd")

:python vim.command("new +read!ls")

to read in the contents of the current directory into a new buffer in a n cichew, horizontally split window.

If you want to handle escaping of special characters, consider using python's re.escape():

:py import re;vim.command("new +read!"+re.escape("ls Dire*"))

which should be sufficient for most cases. If in doubt, check its documentation and compare it to that of your shell.

edited Nov 6, 2010 at 0:39

answered Nov 3, 2010 at 11:26

Sarah

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1 Comment

Roger Pate Over a year ago

Doesn't handle escaping, but does answer most of the problem. Doesn't look likely for this question to get more attention, so I'm awarding the bounty.

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