 Tip #64: Always set your working directory to the file you're editing
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| created: |
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March 28, 2001 9:12 |
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complexity: |
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intermediate |
| author: |
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William Lee |
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as of Vim: |
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5.7 |
Sometimes I think it's helpful if your working directory is always the same as the buffer you are editing. You need to put this in your .vimrc:
function! CHANGE_CURR_DIR()
let _dir = expand("%:p:h")
exec "cd " . _dir
unlet _dir
endfunction
autocmd BufEnter * call CHANGE_CURR_DIR()
Doing this will make a "cd" command to your the current buffer each time you switch to it. This is actually similar to vimtip#2 but more automatic.
You should see for more details:
:help autocmd
:help expand
:help function
Note: This tip was contributed by somebody on the list a while ago (sorry for no reference) and it has been extremely helpful to me. Thanks!
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Additional Notes
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Alexey Marinichev,
June 5, 2001 10:54
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Autocommand that calls CHANGE_CURR_DIR can be rewritten like this:
autocmd BufEnter * cd %:p:h
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Anonymous,
July 19, 2001 12:19
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Another approach is to keep VIM's starting directory, but have the capability to easily change directory to the file being edited. The mapping below does that.
map ,cd :exe 'cd ' . expand ("%:p:h")<CR>
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[email protected],
September 29, 2001 10:39
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I've found it useful to not change the directory if one is editing in /tmp (useful for things like editing CVS commit entries). Suitable modification is thus:
function! CHANGE_CURR_DIR()
let _dir = expand("%:p:h")
if _dir !~ '^/tmp'
exec "cd " . _dir
endif
unlet _dir
endfunction
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Anonymous,
January 15, 2005 19:09
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The above tip is great, but it does not work with directories that have space characters in the name.
Simply changing:
exec "cd " . _dir
to
exec "cd %:p:h"
fixes the issue. And perhaps the initial expand() isn't needed either?
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