In vimscript, what is the difference between call
and execute
? In what scenarios / use cases should I use one vs the other?
(Disclaimer, I am aware of the extensive online help available within vim - I am seeking a concise answer to this specific question).
From the experience of writing my own plugins and reading the code of others:
:call: Used to call functions:
function! s:foo(id)
execute 'buffer' a:id
endfunction
let target_id = 1
call foo(target_id)
:execute: Used for two things:
1) Construct a string and evaluate it. This is often used to pass arguments to commands:
execute 'source' fnameescape('l:path')
2) Evaluate the return value of a function (arguably the same):
function! s:bar(id)
return 'buffer ' . a:id
endfunction
let target_id = 1
execute s:bar(target_id)
:call
: Call a function.
:exec
: Executes a string as an Ex command.
It has the similar meaning of eval
(in javascript
, python
, etc)
For example:
function! Hello()
echo "hello, world"
endfunction
call Hello()
exec "call Hello()"
Short answer
You may see call
as first evaluate the expression and then discard the result. So only the side effects are useful.
Long answer
Define:
function! Foo()
echo 'echoed'
return 'returned'
endfunction
Call:
:call Foo()
Output:
echoed
Execute:
:execute Foo()
Output:
echoed
EXXX: Not an editor command: returned
Execute:
:silent let foo = Foo()
:echo foo
Output:
returned
See Switch to last-active tab in VIM
for example
:exe "tabn ".g:lasttab
Where
g:lasttab is a global variable to store the current tab number
and that number is concatenated with "tabnext" to switch e.g to tab number 3
(If g:lasttab e.g. contains '3' for example)
That whole string >"tabn ".g:lasttab<
is evaluated and executed by VIM's exec command.
HTH?