Vim :e starting directory?

Question

I code in Vim, not an IDE. My source code is often nested 2-3 directories deep.

~/foo$ find
xyz
bar/abc
bar/def

~/foo$ vim
// inside of vim
:e bar/abc
... some work ...
:e <-- is there a way I can have this :e start in ~/foo/bar instead of ~/foo ?

Basically, I want :e to start the directory in "pathname of last edited file"

Thanks!

Answer 1

There's a lot of reasons not to like autochdir as it messes up some plugins and if you end up doing :e ../../../foo.txt you are not gaining anything. Just as an idea try this cmap I knocked up

:cnoremap red edit <c-r>=expand("%:h")<cr>/

then you can type :red and get

:e /the/path/to/your/current/files/dir/

(edit: perhaps use z instead of red as there are commands that start with red)

To expand the topic, also check out the FuzzyFinder plugin and some custom mappings to rapidly jump to common files you are always editing. Eg

10 or so of your regular files should be no more than 2 keystrokes away. It helps if they are systematically named

Here's an idea I use for django.

http://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/UsingVimWithDjango#Mappings

Answer 2

Try the autochdir option. It will automatically change the current working directory to whatever file was most recently opened or selected. In .vimrc:

set autochdir

For more info, :help autochdir