How to automatically execute a shell command after saving a file in Vim?

Question

This is because I'd like to automatically run tests after each file save.

I have looked at autocmd and BufWritePost but cannot make it work.

score 113 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 07 '18 at 18:34

113

This runs run_tests.sh after any file is saved, with the current filename as the only parameter:

:autocmd BufWritePost * !run_tests.sh <afile>

View the auto-command with:

:autocmd BufWritePost *

And remove all auto-commands from the previous with:

:autocmd! BufWritePost *

edited Jun 07 '18 at 18:34

peterh

answered Jan 07 '11 at 17:12

Alex Howell

3

Is there a way to to something like this ?: if a file named tests.html is present in the current directory OR in the directory just above then run command testprog tests.html OR cd .. testprog tests.html ? – Running Turtle Jan 10 '11 at 22:11
3

@Running Turle: I would create a function for this and then use it in an autocmd. Use `filereadable()` to test if there is a file and then act accordingly. – blueyed Jun 03 '11 at 10:00
This works, but what if you want to pass the full path to the file. Is it possible? https://stackoverflow.com/questions/51272435/vim-autocommand-on-write-pass-full-file-path – Maciej Krawczyk Jul 10 '18 at 19:06
1

How to do this quietly in the background so you won't get the output? – botenvouwer Feb 20 '19 at 18:24
3

@botenvouwer Try `:autocmd BufWritePost * silent !run_tests.sh `. Output will still be written to the console, but vim won't wait for you to acknowledge. Send a "quiet"/"silent" option to your specific command or add `>/dev/null` to blackhole its output if need be. – tremby Jul 11 '19 at 22:02
5

and for before save it's `BufWritePre` – andorov Sep 26 '19 at 16:14

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 11 '22 at 00:39

put this into your .vimrc file:

(take raml2html doc/api.raml > public/api_doc.html as a command example)

autocmd BufWritePost,FileWritePost *.raml silent! !raml2html doc/api.raml > public/api_doc.html

notice:

2 Answers2