Using Vim's persistent undo?

Question

One of the new features in Vim 7.3 is 'persistent undo', which allows for the undotree to be saved to a file when exiting a buffer.

Unfortunately, I haven't quite been able to get it properly enabled, or I must be using it wrong. Here's what I've tried so far:

I added the following to ~/.vimrc

set undofile " Save undos after file closes set undodir=$HOME/.vim/undo " where to save undo histories set undolevels=1000 " How many undos set undoreload=10000 " number of lines to save for undo

After this, I supposedly should be able to open any file, edit it, then save-close it, and when I open it again I should be able to undo/redo as if I'd never left. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be the case, as no undofile is ever written.

Notes:

I'm on Win 7 using Vim 7.3 from the Vim without cream project. Persistent undo is baked-in.
$HOME/.vim/undo exists on my file system

Just to stress, point 2) is very important. Vim will not create the directory for you and persistent undo will not work until you mkdir ~/.vim/undo — puk
– puk, Commented Jan 25, 2012 at 19:57
+1. Sorry, on Linux it works... thanks for telling me about it! — Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com
– Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com, Commented Nov 20, 2013 at 11:03
For any future visitors to this question: Do NOT put quotes around the value of undodir! I got stuck on this problem for a while - use an absolute paht, without quotes around it. — naiveai
– naiveai, Commented Nov 16, 2018 at 16:09

Matthias Braun · Accepted Answer · 2021-02-14 08:52:30Z

61

Put this in your .vimrc to create an undodir if it doesn't exist and enable persistent undo. Tested on both Windows and Linux.

" Put plugins and dictionaries in this dir (also on Windows) let vimDir = '$HOME/.vim' if stridx(&runtimepath, expand(vimDir)) == -1 " vimDir is not on runtimepath, add it let &runtimepath.=','.vimDir endif " Keep undo history across sessions by storing it in a file if has('persistent_undo') let myUndoDir = expand(vimDir . '/undodir') " Create dirs call system('mkdir ' . vimDir) call system('mkdir ' . myUndoDir) let &undodir = myUndoDir set undofile endif

edited Feb 14, 2021 at 8:52

answered Mar 27, 2014 at 0:53

Matthias Braun

34.8k27 gold badges158 silver badges177 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

9 Comments

Kyle Strand Over a year ago

This may be preferable for creating the directory: :silent call system('mkdir -p ' . &undodir)

Kyle Strand Over a year ago

I use & because I set the undodir rather than letting it. (In my mind this distinction between let and set is one of the many, many, many mind-bogglingly awful "features" of Vimscript, but YMMV.)

Kyle Strand Over a year ago

Ah. My primary reason for using the -p flag is actually to avoid an error when the directory exists. I have my command inside an if has('win32') block, so I just use mkdir without -p on Windows.

nelstrom Over a year ago

Why not use mkdir()? Then this can become: call mkdir(myUndoDir, 'p'), which behaves like mkdir -p.

Petr Over a year ago

Related: How can I create a folder, if it doesn't exist, from .vimrc?.

|

Juan Lanus · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-17 17:51:46Z

8

I tried this in my _gvimrc:

" Persistent undo try set undodir=C:\vim\undodir set undofile catch endtry

It started working as advertised when I deleted the try-catch bracket, thus:

" Persistent undo set undodir=C:\vim\undodir set undofile

I had to create the directory.

answered Mar 17, 2012 at 17:51

Juan Lanus

2,34424 silver badges18 bronze badges

6 Comments

Arelav Over a year ago

if has('persistent_undo')

Arelav Over a year ago

silent !mkdir ~/.config/nvim/backups > /dev/null 2>&1

Arelav Over a year ago

set undodir=~/.config/nvim/backups

Arelav Over a year ago

endif " adding commented message to increase message length

Dan J. Over a year ago

What is the point of has('persistent_undo')? Why do I need it? When is it true? When is it false?

|

sehe · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-18 10:22:46Z

3

I suppose $HOME doesn't work as advertised.

On my system, :echo $HOME shows H:\, but : e $HOME/ says: ~/ invalid filename.

You could try with an absolute path to see whether it cures it

answered Apr 18, 2011 at 10:22

sehe

400k49 gold badges475 silver badges673 bronze badges

3 Comments

duckworthd Over a year ago

I could |:echo $HOME| and |:e $HOME/| without problems, but I tried changing things anyways. It seemed to work at times, and not at others. Particularly, it never saves backups when I'm editing my ~/.vimrc file.

slawek Over a year ago

On windows 7 I'm using $TEMP. When I look set undodir? it shows ~/AppData/Local/Temp. Undo file is persisted and loads itself correctly. Maybe $TEMP will be more reliable?

Juan Lanus Over a year ago

In linux ~ is a shortcut for $HOME in the commandline, as you already know. About it working sometimes, I guess that it might depend on which environment you start vim from. I imagine that it would work inside the mini shell that comes with git installations, but might not be recognized in a plain Windows shell. Cannot test, don't run Windows any more. Perhaps with H:\ ...

joharr · Accepted Answer · 2016-11-22 06:17:37Z

This now works as expected: file.txt open in a Vim 7.4 buffer on Windows 7, :setlocal undofile, then save a change to the buffer, and the undofile .file.txt.un~ is created alongside because :set undodir? reports that "undodir=." by default - ie no need to specify this manually. You can also :set undofile in a modeline.

anonymous · Accepted Answer · 2024-08-06 12:03:39Z

Now if someone using nvim and want to use Persistent undo in undotree.

add bottom 2 lines in options.lua or init.lua file opt.undodir = "~/.undodir" opt.undofile = true

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Using Vim's persistent undo?

5 Answers 5

9 Comments

6 Comments

3 Comments

Comments

Comments

Linked

Hot Network Questions