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When using vim inside my Bash-shell, I will sometimes use Ctrl-Z to leave vim and do other things in the shell. Later, I will then use the fg command to return to vim. However, it sometimes happens that instead of returning to vim with fg, I start a new instance of vim when I find some file I want to edit. That means I have two instances of vim running in the same shell, and I don't like this idea. I want to force myself to only run one instance per shell.

Is there some way I can block vim from starting if one instance is already running in the current shell? Can this be implemented in the .vimrc instead of making a shell script that runs when I type vim?

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  • Are you certain this wouldn’t interfere with your workflow? Very often I suspend Vim precisely to open another instance on a different file someplace else. Perhaps it’d be better to have $PS1 indicate that the current shell already has a backgrounded Vim. Commented Jan 5, 2017 at 17:14
  • @phg Well the severe case is when you attempt to open a file that was already opened by an old instance. Since I don't use the swapfile thing, I am not notified of that. Having the same file open in two instances is bad IMO. Commented Jan 5, 2017 at 17:24

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Reset to default
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This in your .bashrc might work, but may hit some false positives:

alias vim='if jobs | grep -q vim; then fg; else command vim; fi'
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    You could drop the absolute path and use command vim instead. And $@ needs to be double quoted. Commented Jan 5, 2017 at 17:21
  • Noted and incorporated. Commented Jan 5, 2017 at 17:24
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    Alias don't do parameter expansion - "$@" makes no sense there. Did you mean to make a function? Commented Jan 6, 2017 at 2:57
  • Fair point; I don't use alias very often, so I forget that passing parameters is already handled automagically. Commented Jan 6, 2017 at 15:53

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