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Is it possible to get vim to open multiple files into tabs, similar to the way the args <path> command will open multiple files into buffers?

Doing something like :tabe ./* results in the error "E77: Too many file names", even though the number of files is less than the value set in the tabpagemax property.

(I believe the vim -p <files> option will open in tabs, but I'm hoping to find a way to do it when vim is already open.)

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1 Answer

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:tab all

will open all the files in Vim's argument list in individual tabs. The argument list is initially set to the list of file names given on the command line when Vim is started. The list may be changed with the :args and related commands. See

:help :all
:help argument-list

Example:

:args *.c
:tab all

will open all the .c files in the current directory in individual tabs.

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I'm not sure how this is meant to work. Say if I want to open all .txt files in the current directory, what would I enter? If I enter :tab all *.txt, vim counters with "E488: Trailing characters" – Ash Aug 4 '10 at 9:52
I edited the answer to clarify what I meant by "arguments". I meant Vim's argument list rather than arguments to :tab all. – garyjohn Aug 4 '10 at 15:39
Nice, got it now. The only thing that could make this better is a one line equivalent...what do you think the chances are? – Ash Aug 5 '10 at 0:05
I don't know of a single command that can do that, but you can put two commands on one line by separating them with a vertical bar, like this: :args *.c | tab all. – garyjohn Aug 5 '10 at 0:31
1  
The downside is that using :tab all replaces your existing tabs. Because of this, in my use case, it doesn't provide much benefit over reopening files with vim -p. However, if there were some way to stuff existing tabs into :args, it might be possible to open new tabs and keep the existing ones. – iqnivek Jul 19 '12 at 23:36
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