How to automatically create whole path when creating new file using vim?

Question

To open new files while in vim I usually do the following:

:tabe my_newfile

However, say I want to open a new file in a NEW directory, like so:

:tabe newdir/my_newfile

leads to the error

"newdir/my_newfile" E212: Can't open file for writing

Is there a smooth way to create the newdir automatically?

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4292733/vim-creating-parent-directories-on-save — xdazz, Jun 01 '12 at 08:58
@AaronDigulla never: I use vim's (awesome) tab completion: `:tabed path/**/stylesheets/newdir/mynewfile` — sehe, Jun 01 '12 at 11:39

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 01 '12 at 09:02

I'm using this workaround outside of vim: I've created a shell script vim in $HOME/bin which makes backup of every file that I edit in folder $HOME/.vimback/...path.../file.

In a similar way, you could create a similar script that runs

for f in "$@" ; do
    mkdir -p $(dirname "$f")
done

/usr/bin/$(basename "$0") "$@"

But I'd suggest to ask whether the directories should be created to avoid accidentally creating directories because of typos.

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 01 '12 at 09:04

1

Try the plugin auto_mkdir. It sounds exactly what you are searching for.

PS: I don't have used it, and I will not (due to the comment of @Aaron_Digulla

answered Jun 01 '12 at 09:04

mliebelt

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How to automatically create whole path when creating new file using vim?

2 Answers2