Practical Vim, 2nd Edition

Chapter 7Open Files and Save Them to Disk

Vim has a few ways of opening files. In Tip 42, we’ll look at the :edit command, which can be used to open any file by providing a filepath.

If we’re working on files that are two or more directories beneath our project root, having to specify a complete filepath for every file we want to open can be awkward. In Tip 43, we’ll learn how to configure the ‘path’ option, which makes it possible to use the :find command. This saves us from having to specify fully qualified filepaths and allows us to simply enter the filename.

The netrw plugin, which ships with Vim, makes it possible to explore the contents of a directory tree. We’ll find out how to use it in Tip 44.

The :write command lets us save ...