Background grep searches

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Tip 986 Printable Monobook Previous Next

created 2005 · complexity intermediate · author jheddings · version 6.0

Many times, I launch recursive searches from the current directory that take a while to run. These functions allow a search to run in the background and the results to be pulled in later (once the search completes).

" runs a search in the background
function! BackgroundGrep(search, fpatt)
  let g:bg_grep_file = tempname()
  " for Win32
  silent execute "!start cmd /c \"" . &grepprg . " -R " . a:search . " " . a:fpatt . " >" . g:bg_grep_file . " 2>&1\""
  echo g:bg_grep_file
endfunction

" loads the results of the last background search
function! LoadBackgroundGrepResults()
  if !exists("g:bg_grep_file")
    echohl ErrorMsg | echo "BackgroundGrep() must be run first" | echohl None
    return
  endif
  if !filereadable(g:bg_grep_file)
    echohl ErrorMsg | echo "Cannot open bg_grep_file: " . g:bg_grep_file | echohl None
    return
  endif
  execute "cfile " . g:bg_grep_file
endfunction

In order to make the functionallity work for Unix, you'll have to change the "silent execute..." line of the first function to use the Unix commands (and & to run in the background). It should be pretty straightforward to modify this line.

Also, I usually map the functions to something useful:

map <A-/> :call BackgroundGrep("<cword>", "*")<CR>
map <A-?> :call LoadBackgroundGrepResults()<CR>

Background grep searches

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