Vim-fetch

Fetch that line and column, boy!

• Intro
• Usage
• Rationale
• Installation
• License

Intro

vim-fetch enables Vim to process line and column jump specifications in file paths as found in stack traces and similar output. When asked to open such a file, in- or outside Vim or via gF, Vim with vim-fetch will jump to the specified line (and column, if given) instead of displaying an empty, new file.

If you have wished Vim would have a better understanding of stack trace formats than what it offers out of the box, vim-fetch is for you.

Usage

• vim path/to/file.ext:12:3 in the shell to open file.ext on line 12 at column 3
• :e[dit] path/to/file.ext:100:12 in Vim to edit file.ext on line 100 at column 12
• gF with the cursor at ^ on path/to^/file.ext:98,8 to edit file.ext on line 98, column 8
• gF with the selection |...| on |path to/file.ext|:5:2 to edit file.ext on line 5, column 2

Besides the GNU colon format, vim-fetch supports various other jump specification formats, including some that search for keywords or method definitions. For more, see the [documentation][doc].

Rationale

Quickly jumping to the point indicated by common stack trace output should be a given in an editor; unluckily, Vim has no concept of this out of the box that does not involve a rather convoluted detour through an error file and the Quickfix window. As the one plug-in that aimed to fix this, Victor Bogado’s [file_line][bogado-plugin], had a number of issues (at the time of this writing, it didn’t correctly process multiple files given with a window switch, i.e. [-o, -O][bogado-issue-winswitch] and [-p][bogado-issue-tabswitch], and as it choked autocommand processing for the first loaded file on the arglist), vim-fetch was born.

Installation

1. The old way: download and source the vimball from the releases page, then run :helptags {dir} on your runtimepath/doc directory. Or,
2. The plug-in manager way: using a git-based plug-in manager (Pathogen, Vundle, NeoBundle etc.), simply add wsdjeg/vim-fetch to the list of plug-ins, source that and issue your manager's install command.

License

vim-fetch is licensed under the terms of the MIT license according to the accompanying license file.