Question

In Ruby there is a gem called interactive_editor which allows entering a vim session when entering vi in Ruby interpreter.

Literally we need to require interactive_editor.rb in ~/.irbrc file, like this:

require '~/interactive_editor.rb'

And we are done. When we do vi in interactive session; vim is launched. As soon as we quit the editor, the code inside the vim session is executed. Here is more information about running vim within irb.

So, is there any equivalent to that in Python?

Answer 1

from os import system as sh
def vim(fname): sh('vim ' + fname)

A possible way of (re)loading the module:

import imp
from os import system as sh

def _vim(fname, globs):
    sh('vim ' + fname)
    (dirname, _, basename) = fname.rpartition('/')
    modname = basename.rpartition('.')[0]
    m = imp.load_source(modname, fname)
    globs[modname] = m

and anytime you import this into the interpreter, it is recommended to make a wrapper manually:

def vim(fname): _vim(fname, globals())

because globals() called in a python file holds the file’s globals, not the interpreter’s. I know, it’s not elegant. But I’d recommend to reload module manually like reload(modname), it gives you more control, though may be tedious.