Re: E77: Too many files

On 2020-12-18, Manfred Lotz wrote:
> I have a simple scratch buffer functionity in scratch.vim like follows
>
> if exists('g:loaded_scratch')
> finish
> endif
> let g:loaded_scratch = 1
>
> let g:scratchbuf_no = 1
>
> function! ScratchEdit(cmd)
> exe a:cmd '[Scratch' . g:scratchbuf_no . ']'
> let g:scratchbuf_no += 1
>
> setlocal buflisted
> setlocal noswapfile
> setlocal buftype=nofile
> setlocal bufhidden=hide
> setlocal foldcolumn=0
> setlocal nonumber
> endfunction
>
> command! -bar -nargs=* Scratch call ScratchEdit('edit')
>
> (if above could/should be improved any advice is welcome)
>
>
> Sometimes when issueing :Scratch I get
>
> E77: Too many files
>
> Then after some minutes when switching buffers (but not having closed
> any buffer) I can do :Scratch without any errors.
>
> Any ideas how to find out what the cause is?

The problem is that your edit command,

exe a:cmd '[Scratch' . g:scratchbuf_no . ']'

expands to this, when g:scratchbuf_no is 1, for example:

edit [Scratch1]

Vim looks for a file matching the glob "[Scratch1]", which is
a single character in the set "S c r a t c h 1". If the glob
doesn't match any files, the buffer name "[Scratch1]" is used. If
the glob matches one file, that file is opened. If you happen to
have more than one file with a single-character name from that set,
then that glob will match more that one file and you will get E77.

You can fix that problem by escaping the brackets like this:

exe a:cmd '\[Scratch' . g:scratchbuf_no . '\]'

Some years ago I wrote a similar function to create a scratchpad
buffer with a name enclosed in brackets with results similar to
yours. I was very confused until the "Aha!" moment.

Regards,
Gary

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