How to a open a file in vim using pipe

Question

I get to use the locate command extremely often.

So if I run the following command.

locate updatedb | head -1

Then it gives me the O/p

/usr/updatedb.conf

I wonder if there is any such command that can let me open that file directly?

I am hoping for something like this.

locate updatedb | head -1 | vim

score 28 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 16 '14 at 12:02

28

You're nearly done:

$ locate updatedb | head -1 | xargs vim

sometimes (under certain terminals) you need reset the terminal after editing.

$ reset

answered Jun 16 '14 at 12:02

periket2000

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Most probably your version of `locate` have `-l` / `--limit` / `-n` option so you do not need `head -1`: `locate -n 1 updatedb | xargs vim` – Dmitry Alexandrov Jun 16 '14 at 17:19
2

Why does this terminal corruption happen? Is there any way to avoid it? – Jacobo de Vera Nov 28 '14 at 12:43

score 23 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 16 '14 at 12:08

23

As an interactive editor, Vim needs both stdin and stdout, so using it within a pipe is problematic and makes Vim warn about this. For just a single file, process substitution solves this easily:

vim "$(locate updatedb | head -1)"

You can also use backticks, and that even works inside Vim itself:

:edit `locate updatedb | head -1`

answered Jun 16 '14 at 12:08

Ingo Karkat

22,638
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This also works on strings with spaces, which is nice for file names like "version 2 - final.csv". – Alex Moore-Niemi Jan 05 '18 at 16:52

score 5 · Answer 3 · answered May 11 '20 at 02:37

In addition to the above answer, to avoid the "terminal corruption" stated by Jacobo de Vera in the comment, use the xargs option -o or --open-tty to make vim assume the input is from a terminal, not stdin.

$ locate updatedb | head -1 | xargs -o vim

See: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/44428/307359

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 10 '16 at 06:15

0

I know this is bad solution but I used this for creating alias in .bashrc:

locate updatedb  > /tmp/vimForTempDontTouch && vim /tmp/vimForTempDontTouch

Downsides: ugly

Advantage: No side effects with terminal

answered Apr 10 '16 at 06:15

Tebe

103
4

How to a open a file in vim using pipe

4 Answers4