Get vim to modify the file instead of moving the new version on it?

Question

I want my app to update automatically when I save my files. So I use inotify (ubuntu) to create watchers that detect the events.

The issue is vim overwrites the file instead of updating it. So my watcher is lost after the first update.

I wonder, is there a way to setup vim so it doesn't use swap files and updates directly the file ?

(I tried :set noswapfile and the -n option, that removes the swap file without changing the behaviour)

Answer 1

You can do this:

:set backupcopy=yes

Answer 2

With Vim, you can control this via the 'backupcopy' setting; however, I once took an alternative route and monitored the directories, not the files themselves:

inotifywait --quiet --monitor --event modify --format '%w%f' "$dir"

This required some more processing in my script (checking whether the modified file matches my list), but also enabled me to capture newly created files, too.