How to interrupt a Vim command taking too much time?

Question

Sometimes a Vim command takes too much time to execute.

Typical example : gf command with a huge path over a network. It can take up to 30 seconds to end. I would like to interrupt the execution while it is ongoing.

Is there a way to cancel the command execution and go back to normal mode (without having to kill Vim and restart) ?

Answer 1

You can interrupt it sending SIGINT (CTRL+C).

Answer 2

From the documentation:

CTRL-C      Interrupt current (search) command.  Use CTRL-Break on
            MS-DOS |dos-CTRL-Break|.
            In Normal mode, any pending command is aborted.