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Add a til on the Head of File Name modifier.

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jbranchaud
2015-02-19 21:57:46 -06:00
parent 70d23403f9
commit ebe32996df

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# Head of File Name
At Hashrocket, I kept seeing my coworkers type a variety of commands into
vim command mode that included `%:h`. I finally decided to ask what was
going on. It turns out that it produces the directory of the file in your
current vim buffer.
The `%` represents the current file and `:h` is a filename modifier,
*head of the filename*, that truncates the last component and any
separators. So if you remove the file part of the current file (`%`), you
are left with the (relative) directory of the current file. Your imagination
and vim's flexibility can now take over.
A common use case is to use it to quickly edit another file that you know is
in the same directory. Why type out a long pathname over and over throughout
the day, when you can type:
```
:e %:h<tab>
```
After hitting tab, the pathname will be auto-completed. Complete the rest of the
filename as you do.
Or perhaps you aren't sure what file you want to edit and you'd rather just
get a picture of the whole directory:
```
:e %:h
```
You are now exploring the whole directory in netrw mode. Yay!
If you want to find out more about similar features,
there is a section in the Vim documentation that talks all about [filename
modifiers](http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/cmdline.html#filename-modifiers).