Make vim / curl recognize https:// links

Question

I recently noticed vim/vimdiff can open links (using curl, it seems), which is an awesome feature. I wanted to use it today, like this:

vimdiff deps https://raw.github.com/symfony/symfony-standard/v2.0.10/deps

But the https:// does not seem to trigger this awesome mechanism too. There is no authentication on this page, I think https:// is just there to provide data encryption. How can I force vim to recognize the https:// protocol?

Answer 1

As I said in a comment, the netrw plugin, which handles http://, doesn't handle https:// (this from looking at the plugin code). I went into the code and got https:// working (no guarantees it's bug-free, but it worked for the couple sites I tried). I've created a pair of patches, for netrw.vim and netrwPlugin.vim. Here's how to apply them, keeping the originals untouched and the patched versions in your local configuration:

• Make sure you have a ~/.vim/autoload and ~/.vim/plugin directory.
• Download the patches, remember where you saved them (I'll assume it's at ~/.vim/patches/netrw.patch and ~/.vim/patches/netrwPlugin.patch)

cp /usr/share/vim/vimcurrent/autoload/netrw.vim ~/.vim/autoload
cp /usr/share/vim/vimcurrent/plugin/netrwPlugin.vim ~/.vim/plugin
patch ~/.vim/autoload/netrw.vim ~/.vim/patches/netrw.patch
patch ~/.vim/plugin/netrwPlugin.vim ~/.vim/patches/netrwPlugin.patch

This works on my vim, 7.3, hopefully yours too. If not, use the changes as a guide and see if you can hack it.

---

In case the pastebins disappear, here they are:

netrwPlugin.patch

56c56
<  au BufReadCmd   ftp://*,rcp://*,scp://*,http://*,dav://*,davs://*,rsync://*,sftp://* exe "silent doau BufReadPre ".fnameescape(expand("<amatch>"))|call netrw#Nread(2,expand("<amatch>"))|exe "silent doau BufReadPost ".fnameescape(expand("<amatch>"))
---
>  au BufReadCmd   ftp://*,rcp://*,scp://*,http://*,https://*,dav://*,davs://*,rsync://*,sftp://*   exe "silent doau BufReadPre ".fnameescape(expand("<amatch>"))|call netrw#Nread(2,expand("<amatch>"))|exe "silent doau BufReadPost ".fnameescape(expand("<amatch>"))

netrw.patch

682c682
<    if choice =~ "^.*[\/]$" && b:netrw_method != 5 && choice !~ '^http://'
---
>    if choice =~ "^.*[\/]$" && b:netrw_method != 5 && choice !~ '^http://' && choice !~ '^https://'
835c835
<    elseif     b:netrw_method  == 5
---
>    elseif     b:netrw_method  == 5 || b:netrw_method  == 50
850c850,854
<       exe s:netrw_silentxfer."!".g:netrw_http_cmd." ".shellescape("http://".g:netrw_machine.b:netrw_fname,1)." ".g:netrw_http_xcmd." ".shellescape(tmpfile,1)
---
>       if b:netrw_method  == 5
>        exe s:netrw_silentxfer."!".g:netrw_http_cmd." ".shellescape("http://".g:netrw_machine.b:netrw_fname,1)." ".g:netrw_http_xcmd." ".shellescape(tmpfile,1)
>       else 
>        exe s:netrw_silentxfer."!".g:netrw_http_cmd." ".shellescape("https://".g:netrw_machine.b:netrw_fname,1)." ".g:netrw_http_xcmd." ".shellescape(tmpfile,1)
>       endif
853c857,861
<       exe s:netrw_silentxfer."!".g:netrw_http_cmd." ".shellescape(tmpfile,1)." ".shellescape("http://".g:netrw_machine.b:netrw_fname,1)
---
>       if b:netrw_method == 5 
>        exe s:netrw_silentxfer."!".g:netrw_http_cmd." ".shellescape(tmpfile,1)." ".shellescape("http://".g:netrw_machine.b:netrw_fname,1)
>       else 
>        exe s:netrw_silentxfer."!".g:netrw_http_cmd." ".shellescape(tmpfile,1)." ".shellescape("https://".g:netrw_machine.b:netrw_fname,1)
>       endif
865c873,877
<      exe s:netrw_silentxfer."!".g:netrw_http_cmd." ".shellescape(tmpfile,1)." ".shellescape("http://".g:netrw_machine.netrw_html,1)
---
>      if b:netrw_method == 5
>       exe s:netrw_silentxfer."!".g:netrw_http_cmd." ".shellescape(tmpfile,1)." ".shellescape("http://".g:netrw_machine.netrw_html,1)
>      else 
>       exe s:netrw_silentxfer."!".g:netrw_http_cmd." ".shellescape(tmpfile,1)." ".shellescape("https://".g:netrw_machine.netrw_html,1)
>      endif
1565a1578
>   let httpsurm = '^https://\([^/]\{-}\)\(/.*\)\=$'
1598a1612,1618
>   " Method#5.5: https://user@hostname/...path-to-file {{{3
>   elseif match(a:choice,httpsurm) == 0
> "   call Decho("https://...")
>    let b:netrw_method = 50
>    let g:netrw_machine= substitute(a:choice,httpsurm,'\1',"")
>    let b:netrw_fname  = substitute(a:choice,httpsurm,'\2',"")
> 
7075c7095
<   if w:netrw_method == 2 || w:netrw_method == 5
---
>   if w:netrw_method == 2 || w:netrw_method == 5 || w:netrw_method == 50

Answer 2

I mailed the author (drchip) here is his answer :

Hello,

Netrw v144b already supports https (you may get it from http://drchip.0sites.net/astronaut/vim/index.html#NETRW).

Thank you, Charles Campbell

The website has since moved and can currently be found at http://www.drchip.org/astronaut/vim/index.html#NETRW

To install it, I just had to download the .vba.gz file, unpack it, open it with vim, then follow the instructions (source the file with :so %).

My .vim is under version control, you can see the commit here : https://github.com/greg0ire/dotvim/commit/bfbe569ce070383c9f0a7b966ad23a35eefb651f