vim-ripple is a REPL (read-evaluate-print-loop) plugin for vim. It allows you to write code in a vim buffer and execute it from that buffer. The results will be appended to the buffer. You can write both single lines of code and blocks. vim-ripple can support most languages with native vim bindings.
Watch the screencast demo of vim-ripple.
You can get tab completion of your Python commands by using any of the available methods of completion in Vim. hsitz tried the pydiction tab-completion plugin and recommends it to anyone using vim-ripple.
You should get itchy.vim to have improved splitting behavior when opening a new REPL.
vim-ripple works with Python, Ruby, Perl, Lua, and VimScript.
The vim-ripple plugin consists of a single vimscript file that a Vim user can install by placing it in their 'plugin' directory.
vim-ripple requires a Vim executable compiled with support for the scripting language(s) that will be used. It has been tested with Python26, Ruby1.8, Perl 5.12, and Lua 5.1, but version should not matter.
Over last few years several different plugins have been designed to send commands in a Vim buffer out to a shell for processing (typically scripting the Gnu Screen utility), where the output can be viewed. This works well, but for languages where Vim has built-in support some people might prefer executing the commands and getting output right in the Vim buffer. All this takes is redirecting the output from a supported language's command to the user's buffer instead of to a message buffer. This technique is possible only for the languages where Vim offers compile-in support, which include Python, Perl, Ruby, Lua, MZScheme (anything else?) This plugin is specific to Python but it should be relatively easy to extend to other supported languages.
In general, this plugin makes Vim into an alternative to Python's IDLE. It has advantages and disadvantages compared to IDLE, but it's possible that some people may prefer it to a tool like IDLE, at least for some uses.
When the vim-ripple plugin is loaded you can process language commands and get output in your Vim buffer in several different ways:
(1) Prepend a '>>>' user prompt as first characters in a line, then press <enter>. The command will be evaluated and results will be shown beginning in the next line. Commands that provide no output have the command itself mirrored as output as confirmation that they have been processed. You will typically want to issue Python print commands, and these can be abbreviated with 'p' instead of 'print'. Some examples:
>>> print 8 + 16
24
>>> p 8 + 16
24
>>> import sys
( import sys )
>>> for i in range(5): print i
1
2
3
4
5
>>> etc. etc.(2) You can execute a block of lines at one time by visually selecting them and pressing <ctrl_enter>. The block should be a clean block of code with no user prompt chars (i.e, '>>>') at left margin. Output will be returned below the block of lines. Note that this method uses <ctrl-enter> rather than the simple <enter> of the single-line-prompt method.
(3) It's not part of the plugin, but an entire file of Python can be executed with the Vim command: pyfile <filename>. The plugin does not capture any output from this command, however functions defined in the file can may then be accessed in the Vim buffer using single-line-prompt Python commands or the block-select Python processing.
The plugin has a couple of lines defining a syntax region for error messages and a highlight command that displays them in red. This may be overwritten by a syntax file that clears all syntax settings so if you want to use these you may want to move the syntax and the highlight command to a syntax and color file, respectively.
vim-ripple is a fork of hsitz/PyScratch that improves cross-platform compatibility, improves handling of errors, adds filetype detection, adds pythonx/python3 support, and adds support for VimScript.
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