Quick switch between source and header files in Vim

Date Category vim

There are many ways to do this, as listed in vim wiki.

I tried the script way (a.vim, but not feel comfortable. Because:

  1. I'm doing kernel development, so I have a bunch of my own stdio.h, stdlib.h, etc. But a.vim will bring you into the system include path, not my own
  2. Even though I jumped to the right space, jump back is not easy

Finally, I found the ctags way very usable. Issue this command in your source tree root,

$ ctags --extra=+f -R .

Then in vim, you can just type :tag header.h to jump to header.h and use your familiar ctrl+t to jump back, very intuitive. Plus, I found a gf command of vim that can jump to the file under cursor, but with the same drawbacks as a.vim, thus not adorable.

UPDATE

Here is a Vim Wiki talking about how to jump back and forth using {%key Ctrl %}-I and {%key Ctrl %}-O, which is kind of sweet. Thanks @Partha Bera for point that out.