How to get version for a plugin inside Vim?

Question

Is it possible to get the version number for an installed plugin from within Vim?

Answer 1

in general: no. there is no concept of plugin-version in vim. if the plugin itself provides some variable, you might :echo that one.

Answer 2

Is it possible to get the version number for an installed plugin from within Vim?

Yes, as long as the plugin installs from github.

One example... let's find the version of the vim Plugin called ale...

• First, cd into your plugin's git root directory... in my case, it's cd /home/mpenning/.vim/bundle/ale.
• git log | grep commit | head -n1. This returns: commit 607f33a1b0f662d9809d54363e8e81a4965862ce
• Now I go to the github list of ale commits. Remember to account for the fact that github shows a short hash and git log gives you a long hash.

The hash matched git HEAD... based on the git tag list, the most recent version of ale is version 3.2.0.

So I'm running ale git HEAD... just north of ale version 3.2.0

Answer 3

Some plugins lists the version in the help files. E.g. with Nvim-R, you can see the version using :help nvim-r.