I noticed that most people think Vim sucks and they constantly perform the following keystrokes:
:wq
perl somefile.pl
vim somefile.pl
Here is the first trick, you don’t need to exit vim to perform a command. Simply type the following while you’re in vim:
:!perl somefile.pl
Offcourse, you don’t want to type the filename all the time, so you use the following:
:!perl %
Now, if you are using a different scripting language it might be more portable to make the file executable (chmod u+x) and make sure the Shebang points to the right interpreter. Your script would be something like the following then:
#!/usr/bin/env perl use strict; use warnings; use Socket;
Now all you have to do is type the following in vim and your script will be executed:
:!%
I noticed that the :!% trick doesn’t work when your script is in your current working directory. This is how you can make it work:
:!./%
I also noticed that before you execute this command you always need to type :w to save the changes. To automate this i’ve added the following to my ~/.vimrc file:
map ,r :w<cr>:!./%</cr><cr>
</cr>
Now all i have to type is the following:
,r
For other tricks and hints you have to check out Vi-IMproved.org.