Save and run at the same time in Vim

Question

I do a lot of Python quick simulation stuff and I\'m constantly saving (:w) and then running (:!!). Is there a way to combine these actions?

Maybe a "save and run&qu

Answer 1

In Vim, you could simply redirect any range of your current buffer to an external command (be it Bash, the Python interpreter, or you own Python script).

# Redirect whole buffer to 'python'
:%w !python

Suppose your current buffer contains two lines as below,

import numpy as np
print np.arange(12).reshape(3, 4)

then :%w !python will run it, be it saved or not. And print something like below on your terminal,

[[ 0  1  2  3]
 [ 4  5  6  7]
 [ 8  9 10 11]]

Of course, you could make something persistent, for example, some keymaps.

nnoremap  :.w !python
vnoremap  :w !python

The first one, run the current line. The second one, run the visual selection, via the Python interpreter.

#!! Be careful, in Vim ':w!python' and ':.w !python' are very different. The
first write (create or overwrite) a file named 'python' with contents of
current buffer, and the second redirects the selected cmdline range (here dot .,
which mean current line) to external command (here 'python').

For cmdline range, see

:h cmdline-ranges

Not the below one, which concerning normal command, not cmdline one.

:h command-range

This was inspired by Execute current line in Bash from Vim.