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I have a bunch of text files in a directory and I know I'll need to edit each one individually.

I start at the command line with:

vim *.txt

Which opens the files as separate buffers in Vim and leaves me looking at the first one. I edit it, then I use ':w' to save it and ':bd' to close the buffer and move on to the next one.

This ':w:bd' to save and close the buffer feels long to me, and I suspect there's a more Vim ninja way of doing it. What's the recommended way to save and close the buffer you are working on in one felt swoop?

Aulis Ronkainen
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Joe
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3 Answers3

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When passing the files to Vim on the command-line, they are not only opened in buffers, but also populate the argument list. Therefore, you can use commands like :next and :first to navigate through them (and :argdo for batch processing, which can be a nifty trick). The command I recommend for your question is :wnext (short form :wn), which :writes the current buffer and then goes to the :next one.

You don't need to explicitly :bdelete a buffer, especially not when you're launching Vim from the command-line with a set of files and then quit it when you're done. (The only exceptions I can think of is unloading a huge file to save system memory, or re-using a single GVIM instance for many different edits.)

However, if you really want this, just define a custom command, e.g.

:command Wd write|bdelete
Ingo Karkat
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5

While I agree that you don't have to delete open buffers you aren't currently using, I like to delete them because I have vim-airline's tab line enabled, which shows all open buffers all the time at the top of the window. I have the following in my .vimrc:

nnoremap qq :w\|bd<cr>

qq saves and closes the current buffer, but also messes with the "record macro" functionality of vim (which I'm okay with).

apostl3pol
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3

I use abbreviation instead of a command

cnorea wd w\|bd

So I can see what it is actually doing when I hit space after typing :wd, or if I want to be fast I just press enter, it still does the conversion.

isacnewton
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