FIFO buffers
First-In-First-Out buffers are a thing I’ve never used before using kakoune.
I saw them being used by cargo.kak to print cargo output to a buffer active in kakoune.
How to use
- Make a FIFO buffer:
mkfifo /tmp/myfifo - Open the buffer in kakoune:
:edit -fifo /tmp/myfifo -scroll *myfifo* - Run a command in another shell:
echo "hello!" > /tmp/myfifo
This will result in "hello!" appearing in your buffer in kakoune.
Why
Some projects I’m working on have a build or watch command that is running in a different shell.
This way you keep an eye on it while developing.
Instead of echoing hello you can also run a watch command like fswatch -xn . to keep an eye on changed files (and pipe them to a build command.)
I don’t know.
Possibilities are endless!
Adding commands to your own FIFO buffer
Some output will result in errors with file numbers.
You can add a filetype to a buffer with set-option buffer filetype myfifo.
# Add hook to add key map on filetype:
hook global WinSetOption filetype=myfifo%{
map -docstring "Jump to position" buffer normal <ret> %{:myfifo-jump<ret>}
}
# Add hook to remove key map on filetype:
hook global WinSetOption filetype=(?!myfifo).* %{
unmap buffer normal <ret> %{:myfifo-jump<ret>}
}
# command to run when enter is pressed on a line in your fifo buffer
define-command myfifo-jump %{
}