CODEWITHSUNDEEP
vim
greduan
greduan

Reputation: 4938

Vim detect what kind of buffer the current buffer is

I'm making a plugin where the idea is that if the buffer is empty then you'll enter insert mode, otherwise you'll stay in normal mode.

Of course this is all nice and well but you come across some problems, what if you just opened Vim and you're in the default empty buffer and you don't want to do anything in that buffer? You gotta first go to normal mode and then do your :e magic. Which is undesirable as it takes more work.

So my question is, how does one detect if the current buffer is a real file whether it exists in the file system or not.

For example, I'd like to detect if the buffer is a JS file, whether new or pre-existing. Or if the buffer is a NERDTree buffer or a plugin buffer, that kind of stuff.

Thank you. Any help is appreciated. :)

P.S.: For those interested, this is the plugin: https://github.com/Greduan/vim-empty-insert

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1545

Answers (1)

Wiener Boat
Wiener Boat

Reputation: 446

if expand('%:p') != ''
    " do stuff
endif

See :h %:p and :h expand().

BTW, sorry if this sounds rude, but I'd guess many long-time Vim users would automatically press a/i when they enter a buffer, without thinking whether it exists on the drive or not. So you might want to consider keeping the functionality more consistent.

Upvotes: 2

Related Questions