Yank file name / path of current buffer in Vim

clipboardvimyank

Assuming the current buffer is a file open for edit, so :e does not display E32: No file name.

I would like to yank one or all of:

  • The file name exactly as show on the status line, e.g. ~\myfile.txt
  • A full path to the file, e.g. c:\foo\bar\myfile.txt
  • Just the file name, e.g. myfile.txt

Best Answer

TL;DR

:let @" = expand("%")>

this will copy the file name to the unamed register, then you can use good old p to paste it. and of course you can map this to a key for quicker use.

:nmap cp :let @" = expand("%")<cr>

you can also use this for full path

:let @" = expand("%:p")

Explanation

Vim uses the unnamed register to store text that has been deleted or copied (yanked), likewise when you paste it reads the text from this register.

Using let we can manually store text in the register using :let @" = "text" but we can also store the result of an expression.

In the above example we use the function expand which expands wildcards and keywords. in our example we use expand('%') to expand the current file name. We can modify it as expand('%:p') for the full file name.

See :help let :help expand :help registers for details

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