Multiple commands on same line

Question

I've been trying to find something that will let me run multiple commands on the same line in Vim, akin to using semicolons to separate commands in *nix systems or & in Windows. Is there a way to do this?

Wow I was trying to learn about vim from your question (which I did) and found out I could use ; instead of && to separate Unix shell commands too! — user645280
– user645280, Commented Apr 2, 2013 at 12:07
@ebyrob I feel it's important to note that && is 'boolean and' in shell commands so if you have command1 && command2, command2 will only execute if command1 executed successfully. with ; you're just manually specifying the end of that line and starting a new one. It's the same as writing each command on a different line in a shell script. — Will
– Will, Commented Apr 16, 2013 at 20:24
...and command1 || command2, command2 will only execute if command1 fails. That's because in computer logic the || and && are bitwise, and even though "&&" implies that both command1 AND command2 are to be evaulated, command2 does NOT need to be evaluated if command1 fails because no matter what cmd2 returns, it will always fail since the first one returned false (0), and 0&&1 would still be zero.Similarly, if command1=true, theres no reason for command 2 in an OR evaluation because at that point it's already true (1), because 1||0 is 1, and only if it's 0, would need 0||1(which is still 1) — osirisgothra
– osirisgothra, Commented Oct 16, 2014 at 17:38
@osirisgothra that is known as short circuiting/ short circuit evaluation. — speakingcode
– speakingcode, Commented Jun 4, 2019 at 15:22

michaelmichael · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-17 17:52:57Z

330

A bar | will allow you to do this. From :help :bar

'|' can be used to separate commands, so you can give multiple commands in one line. If you want to use '|' in an argument, precede it with '\'.

Example:

:echo "hello" | echo "goodbye"

Output:

hello
goodbye

NB: You may find that your ~/.vimrc doesn't support mapping |, or \|. In these cases, try using <bar> instead.

edited Mar 17, 2013 at 17:52

answered Jul 14, 2010 at 18:40

michaelmichael

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9 Comments

too much php Over a year ago

Just watch out for the handful of commands that don't work with |!

Bill Odom Over a year ago

When you find yourself wanting to use multiple commands in a map statement (and believe me, you will), check out :help map_bar.

michaelmichael Over a year ago

That's true. I asked that very question on superuser a few months ago. My .vimrc doesn't support an escaped bar (\|) for mappings. I learned I have to actually type out <bar>.

geekQ Over a year ago

Thanks for the working solution! :help bar shows motion.txt though and nothing about multiple commands.

Sri Kadimisetty Over a year ago

@geekQ should be :help <bar>

|

Babken Vardanyan · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-08 12:50:01Z

122

Put <CR> (Carriage Return/Enter) between and after commands. For example:

map <F5> :w<CR>:!make && ./run<CR>

Don't use | because:

Some commands have problems if you use | after them
| does not work consistently in configuration files, see :help map_bar

edited Apr 8, 2016 at 12:50

answered Jun 30, 2013 at 15:28

Babken Vardanyan

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1 Comment

fbicknel Over a year ago

From :h map_bar I got that it was ok to use <bar>. But you're right, it is complicated. Reading :h map_bar is the way to go here.

Jonatan · Accepted Answer · 2010-07-16 16:05:18Z

49

You could define a function that executes your commands.

function Func()
     :command
     :command2 
endfunction

And place this in, for example, your vimrc. Run the function with

exec Func()

answered Jul 16, 2010 at 16:05

Jonatan

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4 Comments

elimirks Over a year ago

Clean solution. Would definitely be handy for more than two or just long commands.

Immanuel Weihnachten Over a year ago

Very useful also for the ability to hand errors with try/catch.

minopret Over a year ago

It's more conventional to use :call Func() because :execute Func() means something more. It means to perform the return value of the function as a command. The function described here will not usually have a command that starts with :return, so its return value will be the number zero. Performing that as a command will move the cursor to the first line of the current buffer, which is not always what you had in mind.

kohane15 Over a year ago

@minopret thank you so much! I was debugging and turned out only call works; exec produces unexpected results. Thank you!

Daenyth · Accepted Answer · 2010-07-14 18:39:30Z

37

The command seperator in vim is |.

answered Jul 14, 2010 at 18:39

Daenyth

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Comments

Victor S. · Accepted Answer · 2020-12-04 07:09:09Z

23

Thought this might help someone trying to do substitutions in a chain and one fails

from a comment

%s/word/newword/ge | %s/word2/newword2/ge

You can use the e flag to ignore the error when the string is not found.

edited Dec 4, 2020 at 7:09

Victor S.

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answered Jan 26, 2018 at 22:35

Jerinaw

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1 Comment

Giuseppe Guerrini Over a year ago

Very useful hint!

kenorb · Accepted Answer · 2015-02-22 18:16:42Z

20

I've always used ^J to separate multiple commands by pressing Ctrl+v, Ctrl+j.

edited Feb 22, 2015 at 18:16

kenorb

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answered Jul 14, 2010 at 18:41

eruciform

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5 Comments

DerWeh Over a year ago

This seems to be the only solution that actually works. Who do I specify this if I want to use it in a string?

Tinmarino Over a year ago

You cannot use ^J as command separator in a string because it is inserting the NULL character terminating the string. however you can use <CR> = "\n".

Tinmarino Over a year ago

exe "echo 'foo' \n echo 'bar'"

Tinmarino Over a year ago

exe "echo 'foo'" . nr2char(0x0a) . "echo 'bar'"

Tinmarino Over a year ago

map aa :echo 'foo' <C-V><C-J> echo 'bar'<CR>

Song · Accepted Answer · 2015-04-24 04:21:53Z

3

You can create a new file, and write your commands on it. Then :so %, which means source current file.

answered Apr 24, 2015 at 4:21

Song

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Comments

Mateen Ulhaq · Accepted Answer · 2024-09-15 07:24:38Z

1

Some commands don't allow separation via |.

Luckily, you can wrap them up in an execute:

execute 'echo "hello"' | execute 'echo "goodbye"'

Output:

hello
goodbye

answered Sep 15, 2024 at 7:24

Mateen Ulhaq

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