Vim: Search in Open Buffers

Question

One features I like with Visual Studio is the ability to search in open files only. For example, if I recently did changes to some files and I would like to trace those changes, I might search for a certain word, but only in those files to avoid getting a large list of necessary matches.

Is this possible with Vim?! What I am interested in is being able to open the files I have changed so for using:

gvim `git diff --name-only`

then search those files for what I want.

Biak

There are many ways to do that. Can you be a little more specific to the kind of output/result you are expecting? – Flickertail

I thought the message is clear. Say I have 5 open files. If I want to use vimgrep/grep to search those 5 files, I have to list them by name, which is quite long task. I want vimgrep/grep to search in opened files (i.e. buffers) only. – Biak

you can :vim /pattern/ `git diff --name-only` or :bufdo :%s/ ... or ... – Flickertail

Answer 1

A nice way to do that is to use vim's internal grep command (:vim):

:vim /pattern/ `git diff --name-only`
:copen

This will open a small window (called quickfix) with the search results and links to open the corresponding files (they don't have to be open).

Flickertail

Answer 2

If you want vim to open up all the files in their own buffers for files that match your diff, you could try this:

gvim $(grep -l pattern $(git diff --relative --name-only))

git diff --relative --name-only shows the changed files in the index but with filenames relative to the current working directory.

grep -l pattern <list of files> will report the filenames that contain a match on pattern. (Note that the pattern just has to exist in the files, not in the git diff output.)

POSIX $() instead of backticks makes using nested commands possible.

Exhilaration

nested commands are possible with backticks also: echo <bt>echo \<bt>echo abc\<bt><bt> (replace <bt> with actual backticks). – Swampy

@ZyX, ha, never thought to escape backticks to nest them before. :) Every day something new. – Exhilaration