Running Programs from Vim

Overview

Students are sometimes curious about how I run C or Java programs from vim during lecture. Basically, I map a key in vim to feed the current file to a script. This script compiles and executes the program.

Vim Mapping

I have this line in my ~/.vimrc:

    map [ :!run %<enter>

This means: Whenever the “[” key is pressed in command mode (as opposed to insert mode), execute the external command called “run”, with a single argument, the current filename. The “%” expands to the current filename. “<enter>” (literally, the word “enter” surrounded by “<>”) expands to the enter key.

You might want to also do this vim command, to automatically write out the current file whenever an external command is executed:

    :set autowrite

    :set aw

Otherwise, you’ll have to do “:w” before pressing the “[” key.

The Run script

I have a bash script in ~applin/bin/run. Feel free to copy it. It can be found by the vim mapping, since ~/bin is in my $PATH. You might want to put your copy in your ~/bin, since that’s in your $PATH by default.

It does the following:

Display the file with line numbers (for error messages).
Figure out the file type, based on the suffix or the file command.
Compile the file.
Exit if the compilation failed.
Execute the file.
Print an appropriate message, based on the exit code.

    #! /bin/bash

    # Show the file with line numbers so we can find compilation errors:

    clear
    expand "$@" | nl -ba -w2 -s' '
    echo                            # Space between the listing & output

    # Compile it:

    case "$1" in
    *.cc|*.cpp)
        g++ -g -Wall -Wextra -ansi -pedantic -D_GLIBCXX_DEBUG "$@" || exit
        ./a.out;;
    *.c)
        c99 -g -Wall -Wextra -pedantic -fstack-protector-all -O1 "$@" || exit
        ./a.out;;
    *.java)
        javac -Xlint:all "$@" || exit
        java ${1%.java};;
    *.php)
        php -f "$@";;
    [Mm]akefile)
        make;;
    *)
        # Is it a script?
        if [[ -x "$1" && $(file "$1") =~ " script " ]]
        then
            [[ "$1" =~ / ]] && "$1" || "./$1"
        else
            echo "Unknown file type \"$1\"" >&2
            exit 1
        fi;;
    esac

    exit_code=$?

    case $exit_code in
    0)   ;;
    129) echo Terminated with SIGHUP;;
    130) echo Terminated with SIGINT;;
    131) echo Terminated with SIGQUIT;;
    132) echo Terminated with SIGILL;;
    133) echo Terminated with SIGTRAP;;
    134) echo Terminated with SIGABRT;;
    135) echo Terminated with SIGBUS;;
    136) echo Terminated with SIGFPE;;
    137) echo Terminated with SIGKILL;;
    138) echo Terminated with SIGUSR1;;
    139) echo Terminated with SIGSEGV;;
    140) echo Terminated with SIGUSR2;;
    141) echo Terminated with SIGPIPE;;
    142) echo Terminated with SIGALRM;;
    143) echo Terminated with SIGTERM;;
    144) echo Terminated with SIGSTKFLT;;
    145) echo Terminated with SIGCHLD;;
    146) echo Terminated with SIGCONT;;
    147) echo Terminated with SIGSTOP;;
    148) echo Terminated with SIGTSTP;;
    149) echo Terminated with SIGTTIN;;
    150) echo Terminated with SIGTTOU;;
    151) echo Terminated with SIGURG;;
    152) echo Terminated with SIGXCPU;;
    153) echo Terminated with SIGXFSZ;;
    154) echo Terminated with SIGVTALRM;;
    155) echo Terminated with SIGPROF;;
    156) echo Terminated with SIGWINCH;;
    157) echo Terminated with SIGIO;;
    158) echo Terminated with SIGPWR;;
    159) echo Terminated with SIGSYS;;
    *)   echo Exit code is $exit_code;;
    esac

    exit $exit_code

Jack Applin

Running Programs from Vim

Overview

Vim Mapping

The Run script