Command contains pipe characters - why is vim saying "not an editor command"?

3

I'm trying to map some commands to a shortcut in vim. Specifically, I'm trying to get a colorized git diff. If I type this command in Ex mode, it works as expected:

:! git diff --staged % | colordiff | less -R

But if I try to map it in my .vmirc,

map ,gds :! git diff --staged % | colordiff | less -R<CR>

I get the error:

E492: Not an editor command: colordiff | less -R<CR>

I have other mapped commands using a pipe just fine, so it doesn't seem like that should cause a problem. If I call colordiff by its full path, it doesn't help, either. What gives?

Alison R.

Posted 2010-06-21T15:24:12.867

Reputation: 3 360

3You should take advantage of vimdiff mode as the plugins such as CVSmenu. Otherwise, have you tried \| instead ? – Luc Hermitte – 2010-06-21T15:29:13.340

D'oh! \| did it. I figured it was something stupid. I'll check out CVSmenu, but you should put your comment as an answer, so I can give you credit. :) – Alison R. – 2010-06-21T15:39:04.477

Answers

9

(OK, here it is -- I wasn't sure about \|)

Try \| instead of |.

But you should instead have a look at the vimdiff mode, and how plugins like CVSmenu proceed. BTW, IIRC there already exists a (likely several) plugin that integrates git into vim.

Luc Hermitte

Posted 2010-06-21T15:24:12.867

Reputation: 1 575

6

To add to Luc's answer, this is because | is the command separator in vim, similar to ; in bash

Daenyth

Posted 2010-06-21T15:24:12.867

Reputation: 5 742

Asked: 2010-06-21T15:24:12.867

Viewed: 4 045 times

Active: 2013-05-06T23:46:10.000