How do I edit an existing buffer in a new tab in vim?

Question

Suppose I have started vim like this:

vim foo bar

Now I decide that I want each of those files in its own tab. Is there a way to do that without exiting vim and adding the -p option to my command line?

Solution 1

You wish to open a buffer in a new tab ?

Split up the screen (Ctrl-W s), take up a window, and Ctrl-W T

Solution 2

You can accomplish this by combining the tab command with the sb[uffer] command.

First you'll need to know the buffer id of the buffer you wish to open in a new tab. You can find this out with the ls command:

:ls
  1 %a   "foo"                          line 1
  2      "bar"                          line 0

Once you have the id, you can easily open it in a new tab using:

:tab sb 2

The sb command normally opens the given buffer in a new split window, but the tab command causes it to open in a new tab, instead.

The tab command also allows you to specify where in the tab list the new tab should be created. For example, :0tab sb 2 would result in the new ‘bar’ tab appearing at the beginning of the list instead of after the current tab.

Solution 3

When you start vim like that, you don't get a vim client, the text editor is using the terminal or cmd prompt - the two files are in two different buffers. Use :ls to list the buffers:

:ls
  1 %a   "foo"                 line 6
  2      "bar"             line 0

The %a is the active buffer. You can use :b2 to switch to buffer 2 or use :bn to cycle to the next or :bp for previous. I prefer (CTRL-W v) to split windows vertically, rather than (CTRL-W s), which splits horizontally.

If you have 2 files loaded & no tabs (yet), you can, :tabnew and in the new tab type :b2

If you want to always have buffers loaded into their own tabs, check out this article.

Solution 4

A better way to accomplish what OP asked for is this:

:bufdo tab split

This will open each buffer into a tab of its own, no matter how many there are. If you use this much, it's easy to make into a mapping in your .vimrc. Combined with something like this little vim plugin the following will open every item from :grep (or :Ack) in a tab of its own:

:grep foo
:QuickFixOpenAll
:bufdo tab split

Of course, when resorting to a plugin it would be easy enough to modify it to open the quickfix list contents in directly into tabs.

UPDATE: I've really got to give a shout-out to ggustafsson's comment below. It's far and away the best answer of the lot and beautifully illustrates Vim's tendency towards compositional behavior. The suggestion is:

 :tab sball

It's well worth looking up the Vim help for :tab and :sball to see what's going on here.

Solution 5

1. Open two files in Vim.

$ vim foo bar

2. Check the numbers of buffers.

:ls
  1%a "foo"
  2   "bar"

3. Chain two commands: tabnew to open a new tab and b <buffer_number> to load the desired buffer in the tab.

:tabnew | b 2

View more solutions

Comments

[innaM]

Hmm. Not quite what I had in mind, but not bad for a start. I didn't know about Ctrl-w T yet. Of course, the first tab will still have two buffers that way.

[Rook]

No. After you split the screen into two windows, and open one of them in a new tab, it goes away from the first tab. It won't remain (at least it doesn't on my gvim72). As far as buffers go, they are not connected to windows/tabs ... they are more like memory where vim stores file contents.

[innaM]

Yes, but I want to have tabs.

[DaveParillo]

So you already have started vim in a way that you have your files in the vim client, not in a cmd / terminal shell?

[innaM]

I'm not sure what you mean. I use the shell to start vim like described above and then I have a running vim.

[innaM]

Ah! I guess I never really understood that buffers aren't local to tabs. I always thought (without thinking really much) that each tab has its own buffer list.

[DaveParillo]

On my machine, vim will launch an editor within the shell. To get the vim graphical user interface I have to use gvim. And you are correct - buffers are global to the vim application.

[innaM]

Same here. vim will give me the "ungraphical" vim in my terminal window.

[DaveParillo]

So in that case you'll need to switch between tabs. gt is the fastest, or you can tab switch the same way you switch between buffers - :tabnext (or :tabn 2), :tabprev

[Shannon Nelson]

Also, ctrl-w V splits the window vertically.

[JRM]

CTRL-w v is the correct command for splitting windows vertically

[rkjnsn]

The problem with step 3 is that it first creates a new tab with an empty buffer, and then opens buffer 2, resulting in an extra untitled buffer in the buffer list. Better to use :tab sb 2

[JonnyRaa]

@rkjnsn you should post that as an answer - it best answers the question 'how do I edit an existing buffer in a new tab in vim?'

[rkjnsn]

@JonnyLeeds done.

[pevik]

:tabe % is what I've been looking for for a long time, thanks!

[dessert]

You don’t need the buffer number, give it an unambiguous part of the buffer name and VIM does the rest for you.

[JoL]

No, :tabe % doesn't really open a new tab for current buffer. What happens is that % gets expanded to the filepath of the current buffer and :tabe opens that path. Vim will see you're trying to open a file you already have open and will reuse the buffer you have. This means that this doesn't work with buffers that have no filepath. If you open up a new file with :new and you haven't saved it, you can't put it on a new tab with this. The real command you need is what rkjnsn put in their answer: :tab sb % or shorter: :tab sb

[Sukima]

This was so the answer I was looking for and needed. I was dismayed when :tab buffer part-of-name did not open a new tab! But :tab sb part-of-name worked like a charm. Thank you!!!!

[jackcogdill]

This is not OP's exact question, but was exactly what I was looking for :)

[jav]

oh man this gave me answer to all my questions. Really appreciated.