Append output of an external command

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created February 9, 2010 · complexity basic · author Perlsomian · version 7.0

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The sample function shown below can be used in a Vim script to capture the output of an external command run by the system shell. The function appends the output of the command (if successfully executed) to the current line.

Vim does not include the backquote syntax (aka backtick, backwhack, grave accent) that many Unix shells provide to capture command output. This function shows how to perform the equivalent operation using the system() Vim function.

The following example captures the output of the shell's date command. This is just an example: using Vim's strftime() function would be a better choice if you need the date or time in a script.

nnoremap <F8> :call GetDate('')<CR>
function! GetDate(format)
  let utilpath = '/bin/'
  let fmt = a:format ? a:format : '+%A m%m/d%d/y%Y %R UTC'
  let SPECIALCHARS = 1
  let TemporalFormat = shellescape(fmt, SPECIALCHARS)
  let DStamp = substitute(system(utilpath .'date -u '. TemporalFormat)
        \ , '[\]\|[[:cntrl:]]', '', 'g')
  " Append result to current line without moving cursor.
  call setline(line('.'), getline('.') . DStamp)
endfunction

Comments

How about

:redir => myvariable
:!date
:redir END
:echo myvariable

Simply

:r !date

If you want capture output to new unnamed buffer and

command! -nargs=* -complete=shellcmd R exe "new | setlocal buftype=nofile | setlocal bufhidden=hide | setlocal noswapfile | r !<args>"
"and now you can
:R find | xargs grep vim
"or
:R ls -la
"or whatever
:R mysql -vvt -u root -e'show databases'

Doesn't the :command need to use the -bar flag here so it will see a | as one of its arguments? Without that, I don't think the

:R find | xargs grep vim

example will work. That should also remove the need for the use of :exe.

JamesVega 15:52, February 17, 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, JamesVega, suggestion was taken. Perlsomian 19:42, February 11, 2010 (UTC)

TODO: Determine whether any of these comments are now redundant; if so, delete them (but keep the "Comments" header). JohnBot 07:25, March 11, 2010 (UTC)