You can write a little shell function that will let you easily edit any file that is in the path, or which's location can be retrieved with the whereis tool. This is something similar to what I have in /etc/profile:

function vvim() { vim `whereis $1|cut -d: -f2` }
function ggvim() { gvim `whereis $1|cut -d: -f2` }

Then just type, for example, "vvim ls", and you'll start vim with /bin/ls and /usr/share/man/ls.1.gz loaded. (it's not very useful to edit /bin/ls, but you get the ideea).

A more useful example: vvim profile

CommentsEdit

I liked the idea, great for editing scripts, but it didn't work for the shells I use. Here's how I got it to work for the 2 shells I use:

For 'bash':

vvim () { command vim `whereis "$@" | cut -d: -f2` ; }

For 'tcsh' in .tcshrc:

alias vvim 'vim `whereis \!* | cut -d: -f2` '