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

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?

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.

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.

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

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 <Tab>

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.

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