Practical Vim, 2nd Edition

Tip 42

Open a File by Its Filepath Using ‘:edit’

The :edit command allows us to open files from within Vim, either by specifying an absolute or a relative filepath. We’ll also learn how to specify a path relative to the active buffer.

As a demonstration, we’ll use the files/mvc directory, which you can find in the source files that come distributed with this book. It contains the following directory tree:

app.js
index.html
app/
  controllers/
    Mailer.js
    Main.js
    Navigation.js
  models/
    User.js
  views/
    Home.js
    Main.js
    Settings.js
lib/
  framework.js
  theme.css

In the shell, we’ll start by changing to the files/mvc directory and then launching Vim:

$ cd code/files/mvc
$ vim index.html

Open a File Relative to the ...