How do I close a single buffer out of many in Vim

Question

I open several files in Vim by  for example  running  vim a   php   which opens 23 files   I then make my edit and run the following twice   q   which closes all my buffers   How can you close only one buffer in Vim

User · Answer

How about  vim -O a a   That way you can edit a single file on your left and navigate the whole dir on your right    Just a thought  not the solution

User · Answer

Check your buffer id using   buffers  you will see list of buffers there like   1  a php 2  b php 3  c php   if you want to remove b php from buffer   2bw   if you want to remove close all from buffers   1 3bw

User · Answer

A word of caution     the w  in  bw does not stand for write but for wipeout     More from manuals   bd  Unload buffer  N   default  current buffer  and delete it from the buffer list   If the buffer was changed  this fails  unless when     is specified  in which case changes are lost  The file remains unaffected   If you know what you   re doing  you can also use   bw  bw  Like   bdelete   but really delete the buffer

User · Answer

EDIT  this was a stupid suggestion from a time I did not know Vim well enough  Please don t use tabs instead of buffers  tabs are Vim s  window layouts    Maybe switch to using tabs   vim -p a   php opens the same files in tabs  gt and gT switch tabs back and forth   q closes only the current tab   qa closes everything and exits   tabo closes everything but the current tab

User · Answer

Rather than browse the ouput of the  ls command and delete  unload  wipe    a buffer by specifying its number  I find that using file names is often more effective   For instance  after I opened a couple of  txt file to refresh my memories of some fine point   copy and paste a few lines of text to use as a template of sorts   etc  I  would type the following    bd txt  lt Tab gt    Note that the matching string does not have to be at the start of the file name   The above displays the list of file names that match  txt  at the bottom of the screen and keeps the  bd command I initially typed untouched  ready to be completed   Here s an example   doc1 txt doc2 txt  bd txt    I could backspace over the  txt  bit and type in the file name I wish to delete  but where this becomes really convenient is that I don t have to  if I hit the Tab key a second time  Vim automatically completes my command with the first match    bd doc1 txt   If I want to get rid of this particular buffer I just need to hit Enter   And if the buffer I want to delete happens to be the second  third   etc   match  I only need to keep hitting the Tab key to make my  bd command cycle through the list of matches   Naturally  this method can also be used to switch to a given buffer via such commands as  b    sb   etc   This approach is particularly useful when the  hidden  Vim option is set  because the buffer list can quickly become quite large  covering several screens  and making it difficult to spot the particular buffer I am looking for    To make the most of this feature  it s probably best to read the following Vim help file and tweak the behavior of Tab command-line completion accordingly so that it best suits your workflow    help wildmode   The behavior I described above results from the following setting  which I chose for consistency s sake in order to emulate bash completion    set wildmode list longest full   As opposed to using buffer numbers  the merit of this approach is that I usually remember at least part of a given file name letting me target the buffer directly rather than having to first look up its number via the  ls command

User · Answer

Use     ls - to list buffers  bd n - to close buffer where  n is the buffer number  use ls to get it    Examples    to delete buffer 2    bd2

User · Answer

You can map next and previous to function keys too  making cycling through buffers a breeze  map  lt F2 gt   bprevious lt CR gt  map  lt F3 gt   bnext lt CR gt    from my vimrc

User · Answer

Those using a buffer or tree navigation plugin  like Buffergator or NERDTree  will need to toggle these splits before destroying the current buffer - else you ll send your splits into wonkyville  I use      Buffer Navigation                                                                                                                                                                                           Toggle left sidebar  NERDTree and BufferGator                                                                                                                                                              fu  UiToggle                                                                                                                                                                                                   let b   bufnr                                                                                                                                                                                                execute  NERDTreeToggle   BuffergatorToggle                                                                                                                                                                  execute   bufwinnr b     wincmd w                                                                                                                                                                            execute   set number                                                                                                                                                                                       endf                                                                                                                                                                                                         map   lt silent gt   lt Leader gt w   lt esc gt  call UiToggle   lt cr gt       Where   NERDTreeToggle  in that list is the same as typing  NERDTreeToggle   You can modify this function to integrate with your own configuration

User · Answer

If this isn t made obvious by the the previous answers    bd will close the current buffer   If you don t want to grab the buffer list

User · Answer

Close buffer without closing the window  If you want to close a buffer without destroying your window layout  current layout based on splits   you can use a Plugin like bbye  Based on this  you can just use   Bdelete  instead of  bdelete   Bwipeout  instead of  bwipeout    Or just create a mapping in your  vimrc for easier access like   nnoremap  lt Leader gt q  Bdelete lt CR gt    Advantage over vim s  bdelete and  bwipeout  From the plugin s documentation         Close and remove the buffer    Show another file in that window    Show an empty file if you ve got no other files open    Do not leave useless  no file  buffers if you decide to edit another file in that window    Work even if a file s open in multiple windows    Work a-okay with various buffer explorers and tabbars        bdelete vs  bwipeout  From the plugin s documentation      Vim has two commands for closing a buffer   bdelete and  bwipeout  The former removes the file from the buffer list  clears its options  variables and mappings  However  it remains in the jumplist  so Ctrl-o takes you back and reopens the file  If that s not what you want  use  bwipeout or Bbye s equivalent  Bwipeout where you would ve used  bdelete

[vim] How do I close a single buffer (out of many) in Vim?

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