Practical Vim, 2nd Edition

Tip 107

Recall Results from a Previous Quickfix List

When we update the quickfix list, Vim doesn’t overwrite the previous contents. It saves the results of older quickfix lists, allowing us to refer back to them.

We can recall an older version of the quickfix list (Vim holds onto the last ten lists) by running the :colder command (sadly, there is no :warmer command). To revert from an old quickfix list back to a newer one, we run :cnewer. Note that both :colder and :cnewer commands can accept a count, which causes the respective command to be run the specified number of times.

If we open the quickfix window after running :colder or :cnewer, its status line will indicate the command that was run to generate that particular list.

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