Re-use existing jobs when opening files

Question

The question is best given by examples:

vim example.txt #Opens Vim on new or existing file

Ctrl+Z

vim someother.txt

Ctrl+Z

vim example.txt #Auto-runs `fg 1` since example.txt is already open

Is this possible?

Answer 1

I don't think there is such a generic way to reuse jobs.

For your editing workflow, you might want to switch to emacs. Instead of hitting ctrl-z to return to the shell, you can run a child shell in an emacs buffer with M-x ansi-term or M-x shell, and switch back and forth between the shell and your edit buffers, or even split the view to show both at once. Emacs tracks the working directory of the shell so if you navigate around the filesystem and decide you want to open a file, instead of typing emacs somefile, you can just tell emacs to open it with C-x C-f somefile<RET> and it will open the file in another buffer and switch to it.

You can also start the emacs server and run emacsclient somefile to tell the existing emacs session to open somefile. If it already has it open, it just switches to the existing buffer.

Answer 2

An example solution, works under bash (requires paste, grep, sed). It is specific to Vim but can be adapted to another editor.

jim ()  { 
  paste <(jobs) <(jobs -p | xargs -n1 ps o cmd= -p) |
  grep "$1$" > ~/tmp/jm && fg $(cat ~/tmp/jm | sed -r 's/^\[([0-9]+).*/\1/')
  [[ $? == 1 ]] && vim $1
}

Enjoy!

Answer 3

You may want consider using vim buffers to edit multiple files.

Edit both files: vim example.txt someother.txt then swith between them using :buffer <filename>.

See also the easier buffer switching tip and the Vim buffer FAQ.

Answer 4

No. vim (or any other application for that matter) has no way of communicating to bash that it should take another action instead.