Vim: Open Untracked, Modified Git files

In this post, we will use nvim with the power of git to make our development faster.

Open `git` changed files with `nvim`

Often times I find myself working in a git project where I have to (pretty much always) open modified (relevant) files for working. I use NeoVim as my primary editor, which is why I have aliased the nvim command which opens only relevant files in horizontal splits:

# This command opens untracked, modified and deleted files in horizontal splits
alias nvimch='nvim -o $(git status --porcelain | sed s/^...//)'

If you prefer vertical splits you can use this command:

# This command opens untracked, modified and deleted files in vertical splits
alias nvimch='nvim -O $(git status --porcelain | sed s/^...//)'

You can also open these files in nvim tabs using this command:

# This command opens untracked, modified and deleted files in tabs
alias nvimch='nvim -p $(git status --porcelain | sed s/^...//)'

Smart Splits

When the number of relevant files reaches 5-6, it starts to get bad when having only one kind of split. Which is why I wrote a (kind of) smart split command.

The premiss of this command is to get nvim to open a limited number of vertical splits, say 2 and delegate next 4 to horizontal splits. In this way, we will have only 6 splits at a time: two vertical and three horizontal.

This can be done using the following command:

# This command opens untracked, modified and deleted files in smart splits
alias nvimch='nvim -O2 $(git status --porcelain | sed s/^...// | head -2) \
  -c "args $(git status --porcelain | sed "s/^.../.\//" | tail -n +3 | \
  head -4 | tr '\n' ' ') | sp"'

Now let’s make this more dynamic with environment variables:

export NVIM_VSPLIT_LIMIT=2
export NVIM_SPLIT_LIMIT=3

# This command opens untracked, modified and deleted files in smart splits
alias nvimch='nvim -O${NVIM_VSPLIT_LIMIT} $(git status --porcelain | \ 
  sed s/^...// | head -${NVIM_VSPLIT_LIMIT}) -c "args $(git status --porcelain \
  | sed "s/^.../.\//" | tail -n +${NVIM_VSPLIT_LIMIT + 1} | \
  head -${NVIM_SPLIT_LIMIT * NVIM_VSPLIT_LIMIT - NVIM_VSPLIT_LIMIT} | \
  tr '\n' ' ') | sp"'

This command should allow you to smartly open relevant git files using nvim splits.

Open git changed files with nvim

Smart Splits

Open `git` changed files with `nvim`