how can I check which version of vim I have installed?

Question

I'm running Mac OS X Snow Leopard. How can I check which version of vim I have installed?

Ideally I'd like to know a general solution for checking software versions via the command line.

Solution 1

The command:

vim --version

This is pretty standard for all unix executables.

Solution 2

or, just if you run vim already and want to know what you are in right now:

:version

Solution 3

In a terminal run vim --version ther version number is in the top line of output.

Solution 4

You can also just open a blank VIM document by typing vi or vim in your terminal. The welcome screen will state your version as well as other information.

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Comments

[multigoodverse]

It should be mentioned that this command should be entered in the terminal, not inside vim. And you should have vim added to your environment variables if you are on a Windows.

[Steve Amerige]

It is worth noting that if all that is wanted is a version number and nothing else (for example, for purposes of deciding whether to take some action based on the version number), then the --version output needs to be parsed. I am not aware of a direct way to get Vim's version number (and only the version number) from the command line. Nor am I aware whether line 1 of the output is guaranteed to match a parsing specification. As for a parsing example, in Linux environments you could do: vim --version | head -1 | sed -e 's|^[^0-9]*||' -e 's| .*||'

[mynyml]

An alternative, more memorable way to filter out the version from the very verbose --version output is vim --version | head -n1