I've been comfortable working with Vim for what feels like ages, but I still regularly learn about features and capabilities I'd overlooked.
I recently discovered Vim's :r[ead] command↗ which makes it easy to insert data from another file. I put this to use when I was configuring Netplan on a Linux VM while connected through a remote console session (without copy/paste support) and needed to include an interface's MAC address. Through the magic of Vim, I was able to pull that data straight into the file. For example:
network: ethernets: ens18: [...] match: macaddress: # and then I entered...`<Esc>:r /sys/class/net/ens18/address<CR>`I hit <Esc> to switch to normal mode, invoked the :r[ead] command, and pointed it to the /sys file which holds the MAC address for the interface. The address was then inserted straight into the file:
network: ethernets: ens18: [...] match: macaddress:de:ad:be:ef:ca:fe :r[ead] inserts the extracted content on the line after the cursor so I just needed to quickly back it up to the macaddress line but that was still a pretty easy exercise.
network: ethernets: ens18: [...] match: macaddress: de:ad:be:ef:ca:fe This approach also works well for capturing output from a command with :r !command, such as generating a random password for a Docker Compose stack:
services: my_app: [...] environment: DB_SECRET:`<Esc>:r !apg -M NCL -m 32 -a 1 -n 1`would yield something like:
services: my_app: [...] environment: DB_SECRET:Cn6kp5y2BBk0VvAisULO4dxkXaGyFJ4f And again just a quick bit of rearranging...
services: my_app: [...] environment: DB_SECRET: Cn6kp5y2BBk0VvAisULO4dxkXaGyFJ4f Being able to merge in data from elsewhere without leaving the editor is a pretty slick trick, don't you think?
