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I'm running Mac OS X Snow Leopard. How can I check which version of vim I have installed?

Ideally I'd like to know a general solution for checking software versions via the command line.

Gaff
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Stew
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5 Answers5

39

The command:

vim --version

This is pretty standard for all unix executables.

ghoppe
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    It should be mentioned that this command should be entered in the terminal, not inside vim. And you should have vim added to your environment variables if you are on a Windows. – multigoodverse Nov 15 '15 at 17:06
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    It is worth noting that if all that is wanted is a version number and nothing else (for example, for purposes of deciding whether to take some action based on the version number), then the `--version` output needs to be parsed. I am not aware of a direct way to get Vim's version number (and only the version number) from the command line. Nor am I aware whether line 1 of the output is guaranteed to match a parsing specification. As for a parsing example, in Linux environments you could do: `vim --version | head -1 | sed -e 's|^[^0-9]*||' -e 's| .*||'` – Steve Amerige Jun 16 '21 at 14:34
  • An alternative, more memorable way to filter out the version from the very verbose --version output is `vim --version | head -n1` – mynyml Aug 16 '21 at 14:47
28

or, just if you run vim already and want to know what you are in right now:

:version
akira
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3

In a terminal run vim --version ther version number is in the top line of output.

Martin Hilton
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2

You can also just open a blank VIM document by typing vi or vim in your terminal. The welcome screen will state your version as well as other information.

German
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0

For vim or neovim using regex:

vi --version | grep -oP '(?<=^VIM v)[0-9|.]+'
vi --version | grep -oP '(?<=^NVIM v)[0-9|.]+'

Assumes your grep has perl compatible regex (PCRE).

Adam Erickson
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