CODEWITHSUNDEEP
vimundoundo-redo
duckworthd
duckworthd

Reputation: 15207

Using Vim's persistent undo?

One of the new features in Vim 7.3 is 'persistent undo', which allows for the undotree to be saved to a file when exiting a buffer.

Unfortunately, I haven't quite been able to get it properly enabled, or I must be using it wrong. Here's what I've tried so far:

I added the following to ~/.vimrc

set undofile                " Save undos after file closes
set undodir=$HOME/.vim/undo " where to save undo histories
set undolevels=1000         " How many undos
set undoreload=10000        " number of lines to save for undo

After this, I supposedly should be able to open any file, edit it, then save-close it, and when I open it again I should be able to undo/redo as if I'd never left. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be the case, as no undofile is ever written.

Notes:

  1. I'm on Win 7 using Vim 7.3 from the Vim without cream project. Persistent undo is baked-in.

  2. $HOME/.vim/undo exists on my file system

Upvotes: 110

Views: 45687

Answers (5)

anonymous
anonymous

Reputation: 1

Now if someone using nvim and want to use Persistent undo in undotree.

  • add bottom 2 lines in options.lua or init.lua file opt.undodir = "~/.undodir" opt.undofile = true

Upvotes: 0

Matthias Braun
Matthias Braun

Reputation: 34353

Put this in your .vimrc to create an undodir if it doesn't exist and enable persistent undo. Tested on both Windows and Linux.

" Put plugins and dictionaries in this dir (also on Windows)
let vimDir = '$HOME/.vim'

if stridx(&runtimepath, expand(vimDir)) == -1
  " vimDir is not on runtimepath, add it
  let &runtimepath.=','.vimDir
endif

" Keep undo history across sessions by storing it in a file
if has('persistent_undo')
    let myUndoDir = expand(vimDir . '/undodir')
    " Create dirs
    call system('mkdir ' . vimDir)
    call system('mkdir ' . myUndoDir)
    let &undodir = myUndoDir
    set undofile
endif

Upvotes: 60

joharr
joharr

Reputation: 535

This now works as expected: file.txt open in a Vim 7.4 buffer on Windows 7, :setlocal undofile, then save a change to the buffer, and the undofile .file.txt.un~ is created alongside because :set undodir? reports that "undodir=." by default - ie no need to specify this manually. You can also :set undofile in a modeline.

Upvotes: 1

Juan Lanus
Juan Lanus

Reputation: 2344

I tried this in my _gvimrc:

" Persistent undo
try 
    set undodir=C:\vim\undodir
    set undofile
catch
endtry

It started working as advertised when I deleted the try-catch bracket, thus: 

" Persistent undo
set undodir=C:\vim\undodir
set undofile

I had to create the directory.

Upvotes: 8

sehe
sehe

Reputation: 393064

I suppose $HOME doesn't work as advertised.

On my system, :echo $HOME shows H:\, but : e $HOME/ says: ~/ invalid filename.

You could try with an absolute path to see whether it cures it

Upvotes: 3

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