Modern Vim

Tip 16

Running Programs in a Terminal Buffer

Neovim can run external processes and capture their output in a terminal buffer. These buffers are displayed in Vim’s windows just like any other buffer. In this tip, you’ll learn how to create a terminal buffer and how to kill the process running within.

Starting Programs in a Terminal Buffer

Let’s start by reviewing some of the methods that Vim provides for running external programs. You can use the :!{cmd} command to execute a command in a shell. To see how this works, use cat to inspect the contents of the /etc/shells file:

:!cat /etc/shells
# List of acceptable shells for chpass(1). ...