Vim: how to :source a part of the buffer
vim
Solution
Thanks to Ingo Karkat, I have taken his main idea and improved it. What I wanted to improve:
- We have to use additional user-specified command `:Execute` instead of standard `:so` (ok, we can name user-specified command `:So`, anyway it's annoying to use new capitalized version of the command)
- There is little side effect: register `@z` is corrupted after executing the command.
With my script below, we can use `:so {file}` command as before, and we are also able to use it with range: `:'<,'>so` (which actually expands to `:'<,'>Source`)
Here:
" This script provides :Source command, a drop-in replacement for
" built-in :source command, but this one also can take range and execute just
" a part of the buffer.
"
" Sources given range of the buffer
function! <SID>SourcePart(line1, line2)
let tmp = @z
silent exec a:line1.",".a:line2."yank z"
let @z = substitute(@z, '\n\s*\\', '', 'g')
@z
let @z = tmp
endfunction
" if some argument is given, this command calls built-in command :source with
" given arguments; otherwise calls function <SID>SourcePart() which sources
" visually selected lines of the buffer.
command! -nargs=? -bar -range Source if empty("<args>") | call <SID>SourcePart(<line1>, <line2>) | else | exec "so <args>" | endif
" in order to achieve _real_ drop-in replacement, I like to abbreviate
" existing :so[urce] command to the new one.
"
" So, we can call :so % just as before, and we are also call '<,'>so
cnoreabbr so Source
cnoreabbr sou Source
cnoreabbr sour Source
cnoreabbr sourc Source
cnoreabbr source Source
Problem
As everyone knows, we can `:source` current buffer by `:so %` . But sometimes I want to `:source` just a part of the buffer, not the whole buffer. Say, I just added something to my `.vimrc`, and want to source that part, but I don't want to re-source all the rest stuff. I tried select text and `:so` (actually `:'<,'>so` ) , but it reported that range is not allowed. So, how could this be done? Of course I can save needed part to the temp file and source it, but it is clearly annoying.