When working on real projects using Neovim, we often open several files in a window. Each file corresponds to a buffer. How to switch between these buffers quickly?
To show a list of opened buffers, we can use the :buffers command. Below is
an example output:
3 "train.py" line 1
4 %a "main.py" line 17
6 "keys.py" line 1
7 "utils.py" line 1
8 # "val_CTC.py" line 2
The first number is a unique buffer number corresponding to each buffer.
The native way#
In command mode, some of the commands to change buffers are list below:
:bfirst: change to first buffer in the buffer list:blast: change to last buffer in the buffer list:bnext: change to next buffer:bprevious: change to previous buffer
Or you can use :b <TAB> to choose from currently opened buffers.
If there are a few buffers, it is easy to switch using the above command. However, if we have a dozen of opened buffers, it is cumbersome to use these commands.
Switching buffers using buffer number#
We can switch to a buffer quickly if we know its number. If we know the number
of a buffer, we can use NUM Ctrl-6 to go to a particular buffer (replace
NUM with actual buffer number). For example, to switch to main.py, we will
press 4<C-6>.
This is still inconvenient — since we have to find the buffer number first.
A better solution for buffer switching#
If you have installed vim-airline
，you can configure it to show the buffer number on the top of the window
tabline. Just add the following settings to Nvim config file init.vim:
let g:airline#extensions#tabline#enabled = 1
let g:airline#extensions#tabline#buffer_nr_show = 1
Restart Nvim and you will find that each buffer has a number on the left of the file name. Then you can easily go to a buffer.
If you do not want to use vim-airline, there are other plugins to show a buffer tabline, such as buf-tabline, which is more lightweight.