Re: can't scroll message back after executing external cmd

On 2012-11-09, Johannes Deutsch wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> i wonder, why i can't scroll back the messages from an external command
> that i invoked within vim via
>
> :!<cmd>
>
> Right after the command is executed vim puts the whole output of the
> command on the screen without the more-prompt. Therefore, if the number
> of lines exceeds the height of the terminal vim is running in, i can't
> access the first few lines.

When Vim executes an internal command, it sends the output through
its pager. When Vim executes an external command with :!, it gets
out of the way and releases control of the terminal to that external
program.

One way to solve that is to pipe <cmd>'s output to less:

:!<cmd> | less

Another is to use Vim's system command to execute <cmd>:

:echo system('<cmd>')

which will use Vim's pager.

This topic was just discussed a few weeks ago but I can't find the
thread at the moment. I think one of the replies included a script
that helps solve this problem by using system() but also allowing
file name expansion on the command line.

HTH,
Gary

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