Retain undo buffer after quitting VIM?

Question

I'm wondering if it is possible to retain VIM's undo buffer after quitting.

For example, I'd like to make some edits to a file, save & quit (:wq), then reopen the file and still be able to hit 'u' to undo the edits. Is this possible in VIM?

Answer 1

That isn't currently possible. There is an item in the TODO list and there was a proposed patch on the development mailing list, though.

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Updated 2010/6/6: The pre-release work on Vim 7.3 has included the persistent undo patch.

Answer 2

You probably already know it, but in most cases you can just save, then Ctrl-Z to go to the shell, and then fg to return to vim.