Listing, Editing, and Managing Buffers in Vim

information about it. When it is not displayed in a window and it is not hidden, it is still in the buffer list. This is called an inactive buffer. Overview: Active Appears in a window, text loaded. Hidden Not in a window, text loaded. Inactive Not in a window, no text loaded. The inactive buffers are remembered, because Vim keeps information about them, like marks. And remembering the file name is useful too, so that you can see which files you have edited. And edit them again. LISTING BUFFERS View the buffer list with this command: > :buffers A command which does the same, is not so obvious to list buffers, but is much shorter to type: > :ls The output could look like this: 1 #h "help.txt" line 62 ~ 2 %a + "usr_21.txt" line 1 ~ 3 "usr_toc.txt" line 1 ~ The first column contains the buffer number. You can use this to edit the buffer without having to type the name, see below. After the buffer number come the flags. Then the name of the file and the line number where the cursor was the last time. The flags that can appear are these (from left to right): u Buffer is unlisted |unlisted-buffer|. % Current buffer. # Alternate buffer. a Buffer is loaded and displayed. h Buffer is loaded but hidden. = Buffer is read-only. - Buffer is not modifiable, the 'modifiable' option is off. + Buffer has been modified. EDITING A BUFFER You can edit a buffer by its number. That avoids having to type the file name: > :buffer 2 But the only way to know the number is by looking in the buffer list. You can use the name, or part of it, instead: > :buffer help Vim will find the best match for the name you type. If there is only one buffer that matches the name, it will be used. In this case "help.txt". To open a buffer in a new window: > :sbuffer 3 This works with a name as well. USING THE BUFFER LIST You can move around in the buffer list with these commands: :bnext go to next buffer :bprevious go to previous buffer :bfirst go to the first buffer :blast go to the last buffer To remove a buffer from the list, use this command: > :bdelete 3 Again, this also works with a name. If you delete a buffer that was active (visible in a window), that window will be closed. If you delete the current buffer, the current window will be closed. If it was the last window, Vim will find another buffer to edit. You can't be editing nothing! Note: Even after removing the buffer with ":bdelete" Vim still remembers it. It's actually made "unlisted", it no longer appears in the list from ":buffers". The ":buffers!" command will list unlisted buffers (yes, Vim can do the impossible). To really make Vim forget about a buffer, use ":bwipe". Also see the 'buflisted' option. ============================================================================== Next chapter: |usr_23.txt| Editing other files Copyright: see |manual-copyright| vim:tw=78:ts=8:noet:ft=help:norl:

This section details how to list, edit, and manage buffers in Vim. It covers commands like `:buffers` and `:ls` for viewing the buffer list, `:buffer` for editing a specific buffer by number or name, and `:bnext`, `:bprevious`, `:bfirst`, and `:blast` for navigating the buffer list. It also describes how to remove a buffer from the list using `:bdelete` and permanently remove it using `:bwipe`, as well as how to interpret the flags in the buffer list output.