nvr is a tool that helps controlling nvim processes.
It basically does two things:
- adds back the
--remote
family of options (seeman vim
) - helps controlling the current nvim from within
:terminal
To target a certain nvim process, you either use the --servername
option or set the environment variable $NVIM_LISTEN_ADDRESS
.
Since $NVIM_LISTEN_ADDRESS
is implicitely set by each nvim process, you can call nvr from within Neovim (:terminal
) without specifying --servername
.
$ pip3 install neovim-remote
Start a nvim process (which acts as a server) in one shell:
$ NVIM_LISTEN_ADDRESS=/tmp/nvimsocket nvim
And do this in another shell:
$ # Spares us from using --servername all the time:
$ export NVIM_LISTEN_ADDRESS=/tmp/nvimsocket
$ # This is optional, since nvr assumes /tmp/nvimsocket by default.
$ # Open two files:
$ nvr --remote file1 file2
$ # Send keys to the current buffer:
$ nvr --remote-send 'iabc<esc>'
$ # Enter insert mode, insert 'abc', and go back to normal mode again.
$ # Evaluate any VimL expression, e.g. get all listed buffers:
$ nvr --remote-expr "join(sort(map(filter(range(bufnr('$')), 'buflisted(v:val)'), 'bufname(v:val)')), "\""\n"\"")"
.config/git/config
vim/vimrc
zsh/.zprofile
See nvr -h
for all options.
How to open directories?
:e /tmp
opens a directory view via netrw. Netrw works by hooking into certain events, BufEnter
in this case (see :au FileExplorer
for all of them).
Unfortunately Neovim's API doesn't trigger any autocmds on its own, so simply nvr /tmp
won't work. Meanwhile you can work around it like this:
$ nvr /tmp -c 'doautocmd BufEnter'
Reading from stdin?
Yes! E.g. echo "foo\nbar" | nvr -o -
and cat file | nvr --remote -
work just as you would expect them to work.
Exit code?
If you use a recent enough Neovim, nvr will use the same exit code as the linked nvim.
E.g. nvr --remote-wait <file>
and then :cquit
in the linked nvim will make nvr return with 1.
Talking to nvr from Neovim?
Imagine nvr --remote-wait file
. The buffer that represents "file" in Neovim now has a local variable b:nvr
. It's a list of channels for each connected nvr process.
If we wanted to create a command that disconnects all nvr processes with exit code 1:
command! Cquit
\ if exists('b:nvr')
\| for chanid in b:nvr
\| silent! call rpcnotify(chanid, 'Exit', 1)
\| endfor
\| endif
(Click on the GIFs to watch them full-size.)