Preserve last editing position in VIM
VimVim Problem Overview
When I quit VIM and open the same file again, I am positioned at the start of the file. How can I preserve the last cursor position?
Vim Solutions
Solution 1 - Vim
Taken from http://amix.dk/vim/vimrc.html
" Return to last edit position when opening files (You want this!)
autocmd BufReadPost *
\ if line("'\"") > 0 && line("'\"") <= line("$") |
\ exe "normal! g`\"" |
\ endif
Solution 2 - Vim
The "out of the box" .vimrc enables this with the statement:
source $VIMRUNTIME/vimrc_example.vim
You may just need to restore this statement in your .vimrc. In any case, see vimrc_example.vim and also see the line() function in the Vim manual for a discussion of how it works.
Solution 3 - Vim
The last edit position is automatically preserved by Vim, and is available as "special" jump mark .. Other special marks include " (position you saved from) and ' (position you jumped from).
You can jump to a mark by typing '<mark>, so '. will take you to the place of the last edit, '' will take you back to where you were, and '" takes you to the position you saved the file at.
That and more about Vim marks at Vim.Wikia.
Solution 4 - Vim
There is a plugin (I am the author) called vim-lastplace that will intelligently return you to the last edit that you made.
It also has a configuration option to ignore certain file types. By default it will ignore commit messages for git, svn, and mercurial. For these file types it will start your cursor at the first line. The code snippets above will jump into the middle of your commit message file (where you left off in your previous commit) even though that's probably not what you want. vim-lastplace fixes this problem.
Solution 5 - Vim
A more up-to-date version of the currently accepted answer:
silent! source $VIMRUNTIME/defaults.vim
Solution 6 - Vim
Make sure ~/.viminfo is readable and writable by the user running vim. Somehow I had ended up with a copy readable only by root in my standard user home directory, which meant that the last cursor position could not be stored.
Solution 7 - Vim
I'm adding more complete example to @Mariano answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/14449484/108654 with some additional checks
" Only do this part when compiled with support for autocommands
if has("autocmd")
augroup redhat
autocmd!
" When editing a file, always jump to the last cursor position
autocmd BufReadPost *
\ if line("'\"") > 0 && line ("'\"") <= line("$") |
\ exe "normal! g'\"" |
\ endif
augroup END
endif
Solution 8 - Vim
You could try the :mks command (make session). It stores a script file which, when run through vim, restores your current editing session, including all open files and the cursor position.