Reload .vimrc in Vim without restart

Question

It bothers me when I wrote something into .vimrc and I have to close it first and open to get my changes be applied. Is there a way of reload .vimrc in Vim without closing it?

E.g. I've added set nu to ~/.vimrc and I want line numbers to appear for all my windows and buffers.

Answer 1

:source ~/.vimrc

Run that from inside vim, that will apply your .vimrc

Alternately

:source $MYVIMRC

Answer 2

:so %

if currently editing .vimrc

Answer 3

Here's one for posterity. Add the following to your .vimrc:

map <leader>vimrc :tabe ~/.vim/.vimrc<cr>
autocmd bufwritepost .vimrc source $MYVIMRC

The first line means you can open your vimrc from any vim buffer by typing your leader, then writing "vimrc." For example, my leader is set to comma, so if I'm in edit mode and I type ",vimrc" it opens my vimrc in a new tab.

The second line automatically sources the changes to your vimrc when you save and close it. It's magic.

Answer 4

" Quickly edit/reload this configuration file
nnoremap gev :e $MYVIMRC<CR>
nnoremap gsv :so $MYVIMRC<CR>

To automatically reload upon save, add the following to your $MYVIMRC:

if has ('autocmd') " Remain compatible with earlier versions
 augroup vimrc     " Source vim configuration upon save
    autocmd! BufWritePost $MYVIMRC source % | echom "Reloaded " . $MYVIMRC | redraw
    autocmd! BufWritePost $MYGVIMRC if has('gui_running') | so % | echom "Reloaded " . $MYGVIMRC | endif | redraw
  augroup END
endif " has autocmd

and then for the last time, type:

:so %

The next time you save your vimrc, it will be automatically reloaded.

Features:

• Tells the user what has happened (also logging to :messages)
• Handles various names for the configuration files
• Ensures that it wil only match the actual configuration file (ignores copies in other directories, or a fugitive:// diff)
• Won't generate an error if using vim-tiny

Of course, the automatic reload will only happen if you edit your vimrc in vim.