How to delete multiple buffers in Vim?

Question

Assuming I have multiple files opened as buffers in Vim. The files have *.cpp, *.h and some are *.xml. I want to close all the XML files w

Answer 1

I too had a need for this functionality all the time. This is the solution I have in my vimrc.

function! GetBufferList()
    return filter(range(1,bufnr('$')), 'buflisted(v:val)')
endfunction

function! GetMatchingBuffers(pattern)
    return filter(GetBufferList(), 'bufname(v:val) =~ a:pattern')
endfunction

function! WipeMatchingBuffers(pattern)
    let l:matchList = GetMatchingBuffers(a:pattern)

    let l:count = len(l:matchList)
    if l:count < 1
        echo 'No buffers found matching pattern ' . a:pattern
        return
    endif

    if l:count == 1
        let l:suffix = ''
    else
        let l:suffix = 's'
    endif

    exec 'bw ' . join(l:matchList, ' ')

    echo 'Wiped ' . l:count . ' buffer' . l:suffix . '.'
endfunction

command! -nargs=1 BW call WipeMatchingBuffers('')

Now, I can just do :BW regex (e.g. :BW \.cpp$ and wipe all matching buffers that have match that pattern in their pathname.

If you want to delete rather than wipe, you can of course replace exec 'bw ' . join(l:matchList, ' ') with exec 'bd ' . join(l:matchList, ' ')