Home/ Questions/Q 7066469
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-28T05:05:10+00:00

I found that the vimdiff utility is just a soft link to vim. both

  • 0

I found that the vimdiff utility is just a soft link to vim. both of the two are located under /usr/bin/ in my Suse11 box. and vimdfiff is a soft link to vim. the interesting thing is that, vimdiff file1 file2 is actually the equivalent of vim -d file1 file2, so in that
sense, the -d option is automatically embedded in the soft link, so my question is as simple as
How?

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Vim in its main() function uses argv[0] to differentiate its executable name vim or vimdiff, or etc.

    Link to vim main.c that performs this check to differentiate rvim, rview, gvim, gview, vimdiff, gvimdiff, ex, exim.

    /*
 * Check for: [r][e][g][vi|vim|view][diff][ex[im]]
 * If the next character is "e" we run in Easy mode.
 * If the next character is "g" we run the GUI version.
 * If the next characters are "view" we start in readonly mode.
 * If the next characters are "diff" or "vimdiff" we start in diff mode.
 * If the next characters are "ex" we start in Ex mode.  If it's followed
 * by "im" use improved Ex mode.
 */
    • 0