How can I permanently display the path of the current file in Vim?

vim vi

I know CTRLg displays the current file you're working on. Is there a way to modify my .vimrc such that the filename/path is always displayed?

Solution 1:

In your statusline, add a %F to display the full path:

:help statusline

" Add full file path to your existing statusline
set statusline+=%F

Note, %F will be the full path. To get a path relative to the working directory, use %f.

If your statusline is not already visible, you may first need to configure it to be always visible, via laststatus=2

set laststatus=2

See :help laststatus for what the options mean. Normally, the statusline may be hidden, or hidden unless multiple buffers are open, but I find it extremely useful to have on all the time with customizations like this, well worth giving up one screen line reserve for it.

Solution 2:

set ls=2

add this in vimrc, and you will see the file name at the bottom always.

Solution 3:

I found 2 ways to display the file path in the Title bar of the gnome-terminal while editing a file with Vim.

The simpler (and better) way: Add the following line to your ~/.vimrc:

set title

Which will show you at the top:

filename.ext (~/path_to_directory_where_your_file_is/) - VIM

The more complicated way will show you the absolute file path. It's documented in a bit more detail in this blog post I recently wrote.

Solution 4:

If you are using vim-airline, put in .vimrc:

let g:airline_section_c = '%<%F%m %#__accent_red#%{airline#util#wrap(airline#parts#readonly(),0)}%#__restore__#'

This is a modification of the airline default, changing %f by %F.

Solution 5:

The only way I found to get the full path of the file I'm working in is: :echo expand('%:p'). You can re-map ctrl+g if you want, but I personally don't like shifting away from the standards too much. I've mapped F7 like so:

map  <F7> <Esc>:echo expand('%:p')<Return>