Re: how to execute ranger from gvim

On 2012-12-03, ping wrote:
> On 12/3/2012 8:06 PM, Gary Johnson wrote:
> > exe 'edit' readfile(tmpfile)[0]
> >> > " edit the file whose name
> >> > " is in the first line of
> >> > " tmpfile. (readfile()
> >> > " returns the contents of the
> >> > " file as a list of lines.
> >> > " List element 0 is the
> >> > " first line.
> thanks for the line by line annotation, now I understand!
>
> just one last small thing, in the above line, won't it suffice just:
> exe readfile(tmpfile)
> ?

I'm not sure what you are expecting that command to do. The :exe
command executes its argument string, so its argument string must be
an executable Vim command. The readline() function returns a list
(which is not a string), and the first element of that list will in
this case be a file name. A file name is not an executable Vim
command.

> my test shows that will only give me a line of the file name, but now
> the file contents so you are right,
> but help says:
> readfile({fname} [, {binary} [, {max}]])
> Read file {fname} and return a List, each line of the file
> as an item. Lines broken at NL characters. Macintosh files
> separated with CR will result in a single long line
> (unless a
> NL appears somewhere).
>
> so readfile should have "read" the "file", why I only get the
> filename instead?

The readfile() function read the file whose name was the value of
the tmpfile variable. That file contained the name of the file you
selected in ranger.

Maybe an example would be clearer.

Let's say you execute :RangerChooser in an unnamed buffer. The
tempname() function returns the name of a temporary file, something
like /tmp/vuZJYgI/2, so ranger is executed with arguments like this:

ranger --choosefile=/tmp/vuZJYgI/2 .

You browse your home directory and select a file named hello.txt.
Ranger saves the string "/home/ping/hello.txt" into the file
/tmp/vuZJYgI/2 and exits. Vim now executes
readfile("/tmp/vuZJYgI/2") which returns the list

['/home/ping/hello.txt']

The zeroth element of that list, specified in the function as

readfile(tmpfile)[0]

is the string '/home/ping/hello.txt'. The command

exe 'edit' readfile(tmpfile)[0]

evaluates to

edit '/home/ping/hello.txt'

which is the desired result.

Regards,
Gary

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