README.md

vim-alias

This plugin lets you define command-line abbreviations that only expand at the beginning of the command-line prompt by a command :Alias. These command-line abbreviations work like bash aliases, except that the alias is substituted in-place.

Check out why an alias is most often preferable to a <leader> mapping!

Usage

    :Alias[!] [-range] [-buffer] <lhs> <rhs>
    :UnAlias [-buffer] <lhs> ...
    :Aliases [-buffer] [lhs] ...

• To create an Alias, use :Alias. Pass the optional parameters -buffer or -range to create a buffer-local alias or one that accepts a range preceding the alias. To override an existing alias, append ! to :Alias.
• To remove an alias, use :UnAlias.
• To list all aliases, use :Aliases. Restrict the output to all aliases whose names contain, say xyz, by :Aliases xyz.

To define the Aliases after Vim has started up, define them in ~/.vim/after/plugin/alias.vim, or add to ~/.vimrc

if exists('s:loaded_vimafter')
  silent doautocmd VimAfter VimEnter *
else
  let s:loaded_vimafter = 1
  augroup VimAfter
    autocmd!
    autocmd VimEnter * source ~/.vim/after/vimrc.vim
  augroup END
endif

and define them in ~/.vim/after/vimrc.vim.

Examples:

    :Alias -range     dg   <c-r>=&l:diff?"diffget":"dg"<cr>
    :Alias -buffer    spl  setlocal\ spell<bar>setlocal\ spelllang=en
    :Alias            w!!  write\ !sudo\ tee\ >\ /dev/null\ %
    :Alias            F    find\ *<c-r>=Eatchar("\ ")<cr>
    :Alias            th   tab\ help
    :Alias            sft  setfiletype
    :Alias -range     il   ilist\ /\v/<left><c-r>=EatChar("\ ")<cr>
    :Alias -range     dl   dlist\ //<left><c-r>=EatChar("\ ")<cr>
    :Alias            g    Silent\ git
    :Alias            gbl  Silent\ tig\ blame\ +<c-r>=line('.')<cr>\ --\ %:S<c-left><c-left><left>
    :Alias -range     tl   !translate\ -no-warn\ -no-ansi\ -brief\ -to
    :Alias            g!   g!
    :UnAlias          g
    :Aliases

See :help abbreviations for Eatchar(c). The command :Silent is defined as

    if has('unix')
        command! -complete=shellcmd -nargs=1 -bang Silent execute ':silent<bang> !' . <q-args> | execute ':redraw!'
    elseif has('win32')
        command! -complete=shellcmd -nargs=1 -bang Silent execute ':silent<bang> !start /b ' . <q-args> | execute ':redraw!'
    endif

The executable tig is a text-mode interface for git and translate-shell a command-line translator.

Configuration

The variable g:cmdalias_cmdprefixes lists the patterns of all commands by which an alias command may be preceded and yet expand. It defaults to

  let g:cmdalias_cmdprefixes = [
    \ '\%(vert\%[ical]\|hor\%[izontal]\|lefta\%[bove]\|abo\%[veleft]\|rightb\%[elow]\|bel\%[owright]\|to\%[pleft]\|bo\%[tright]\)', 'tab',
    \ 'conf\%[irm]', 'bro\%[wse]',
    \ '\%(keepa\%[lt]\|keepj\%[umps]\|kee\%[pmarks]\|keepp\%[atterns]\)', 'loc\%[kmarks]', 'nos\%[wapfile]',
    \ '\d*verb\%[ose]', 'debug', 'sil\%[ent]!\?', 'uns\%[ilent]', 'redir\?!\?',
    \ '.*[^|]|',
    \ 'ld!\?', '[cl]fd!\?', '[cl]f\?do!\?',
    \ '\%(\%([.$]\|\d\+\)\%([,;]\%([.$]\|\d\+\)\)*\)\?\s*' .
    \ '\%(argdo\?!\?\|bufdo\?!\?\|windo\?\|tabdo\?\)' ]

Installation

If you use vim-plug, then add the following line to your vimrc file:

Plug 'Konfekt/vim-alias'

Credits

This plugin builds and improves on cmdalias.vim 3.0 by Hari Krishna Dara by

• allowing for aliases of commands preceded by a range (like :Alias -range dg diffget),
• allowing for alias names ending in non-word chars (like :Alias w!! ...),
• moving functions to autoload for faster startup of Vim,
• having a Vim documentation, and
• more checks for proper usage, more consistent parameter parsing and a finer check for blanks or commands (such as : silent! ) preceding the alias.