Executing external command from within vi 2

[olded]

Hi:

I seem to remember being able from within vi being able to execute an external command, and have the results of that command appear in vi.

Does anybody no how to do this.

Regards,

Ed

 

[vgersh99]

:!ls

vlad
+----------------------------+
| #include<disclaimer.h> |
+----------------------------+

 

[CaKiwi]

Or to insert the output of a command into your file

:r !ls

You can also send part of your file to a command and replace that text with the output of the command
e.g. to format the current paragraph

!)fmt

This sends the rest of the current paragraph to the fmt command and replaces that paragraph with the output from the fmt command

CaKiwi

 

[vgersh99]

nice one, CaKiwi!

vlad
+----------------------------+
| #include<disclaimer.h> |
+----------------------------+

 

[CaKiwi]

Thanks Vlad!

A minor errorin my post - !)fmt formats the current sentence, !}fmt is needed to format the current paragraph

CaKiwi

 

[olded]

Thanks guys!

Sorry I really posted this question ikn the wrong forum.

Regards,


Ed

 

[bigoldbulldog]

I often grab some range or the entire body within vi and apply shell stuff to it.

e.g.

# keep 2 of pipe-delimited columns
:/start/,/end/!awk 'BEGIN{FS=OFS="|"}{print $2,$3}'

# or
:%!cut -d"|" -f2,3

# add 5 to each of list of values
:%!while read value; do expr $value + 5; done

etc... Mostly I use this with the sort command on ascii dumps of data.



Cheers,
ND

bigoldbulldog@hotmail.com