Can I script Vim using Python?

Question

Vimscript looks somewhat similar to Python code.

Can Vim be integrated with high-level language interpreters, such as Python?

When you have read the documentation that @derobert points to, you may find Jarrod Taylor's demo of writing python plugins helpful. He also hosts a "plugin starter kit" at his github. I don't use it, but I found reading the code and the project wiki pages to be instructive. — jjaderberg, May 10 '15 at 11:34

score 20 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 08 '15 at 18:56

Yes, vim can be built with several different language interpreters available. This is something you (or your distro) picked when compiling vim from source.

Available at least are Python (as you requested), Perl, Ruby, and Tcl. The vim documentation has details for each; the python one is in :help if_pyth.txt. That document has plenty of examples.

For reference, here are the ones for other languages:

Perl: :help if_perl.txt
Ruby: :help if_ruby.txt
Tcl: :help if_tcl.txt
Lua: :help if_lua.txt
MzScheme: :help if_mzscheme.txt (It's called Racket now, but in Vim it's still called MzScheme for historical reasons).

score 6 · Answer 2 · edited Feb 03 '15 at 17:47

6

Yes, you can create routines with high level languages such as python, ruby, perl, among other.

To see what languages your vim supports:

vim --version

edited Feb 03 '15 at 17:47

alxndr

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answered Feb 03 '15 at 17:21

avelino

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Can I script Vim using Python?

2 Answers2