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Vim 8.1: cursor position not saved.

Hi: I am within vim editing a file and the cursor is in a given position. Now I exit (:wq command). The next time I edit that file, that is when I invoke vim with the same file name, the cursor appears in line 1 column 1. This happens every time I run vim on a file already edited with vim. How can this be? I thought vim always saved the cursor position and, in fact, this was the case when I ran vim under Slackware.

The cursor position is saved in ~/.viminfo. Maybe it's not able to write to this file for some reason? Try checking the file permissions of ~/.viminfo. Maybe the new distro you're running vim under doesn't have the write permission set.

It's an autocommand...defined in the /defaults.vim script on the system wide vim directory (for me it's /usr/share/vim/vim81/defaults.vim )

If yours lacks this, this is the command you could just put in your vimrc.

Code:

autocmd BufReadPost *

  \ if line("'"") >= 1 && line("'"") <= line("$") |

  \  exe "normal! g`"" |

  \ endif

If this doesn't work, it might be related to "+eval", as per the defaults.vim file:

Code:

" Only do this part when Vim was compiled with the +eval feature.

Or something entirely different.

But try it for yourself, if you want.

My /usr/share/vim/vim81/defaults.vim has this block in it:

Code:

" Only do this part when compiled with support for autocommands.

if has("autocmd")



  " Enable file type detection.

  " Use the default filetype settings, so that mail gets 'tw' set to 72,

  " 'cindent' is on in C files, etc.

  " Also load indent files, to automatically do language-dependent indenting.

  " Revert with ":filetype off".

  filetype plugin indent on



  " Put these in an autocmd group, so that you can revert them with:

  " ":augroup vimStartup | au! | augroup END"

  augroup vimStartup

    au!



    " When editing a file, always jump to the last known cursor position.

    " Don't do it when the position is invalid, when inside an event handler

    " (happens when dropping a file on gvim) and for a commit message (it's

    " likely a different one than last time).

    autocmd BufReadPost *

      \ if line("'\"") >= 1 && line("'\"") <= line("$") && &ft !~# 'commit'

      \ |  exe "normal! g`\""

      \ | endif



  augroup END



endif " has("autocmd")

Perhaps vim was compiled without support for autocommands?

Code:

vim --version

will tell you the configuration, you need to look for +autocmd (or -autocmd).

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan64 (Post 6078731)

you need to look for +autocmd (or -autocmd).

Another setting (within vim itself) is the one for 'viminfo', if that outputfile is not enabled

Code:

(viminfo=)

as in my installation, of course no info is saved for a next session.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan64 (Post 6078731)

Code:

vim --version

will tell you the configuration, you need to look for +autocmd (or -autocmd).

It says +autocmd.

that means it is enabled. So there should be an error somewhere