better way then using vim :r! command line to put text out of the command line history like a directory path into the a file

Question

Is there a better way to do this in vim

I like the command line completion that lets me quickly get a full path out. So I use the :!ls and tab to quickly get the path I am looking for.

:!ls /usr/share/doc/
up arrow get it on the command line again, accessing the command line history.
:!ls /usr/share/doc/
Then I edit it like so
:r! echo "/usr/share/doc/"

Because I want to put the path into file and not the contents of the directory. Basically a quick way to put the contents of the command-line history into a file.

Answer 1

(removed my stupid answer because I didn't read the question)

Hum, I should read questions more carefully.

Vim's Omni-complete gives you path completion.

Start with

/usr

then hit <C-x><C-f> to get a list of directories/files.

It works only for one level so you'll need to repeat the process until you get what you need.

Because <C-x><C-f> is not very friendly, I have it mapped to ,:.

See :help compl-filename.

--EDIT--

In Vim, executing the following:

:!ls<CR><CR>
:r !echo !<CR>

puts ls in the buffer which seems to be what you are looking for.

In the terminal, type this to put the whole history of your shell session in a file:

$ history > history.txt

Answer 2

http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Using_command-line_history

also in vim the following is worth reading.

:help cmdline-mode

Basically to paste the last command you ran you access the command register ":".

":p

To get a list of the last few commands you ran. You can then select from the history to rerun the command.

q: