viminfo

Overview

The vim(1) text editor logs a number of operations, including file access, in the text-based .viminfo log file. As the .viminfo file resides under a user home folder, the operations logged in the file can be linked to a specific user usage of vim.

The operations of a given vim “session” are written upon exit of the editor.

The location and behavior of the .viminfo file can be configured in the vimrc configuration files (default locations /etc/vimrc and ~/.vimrc).

Information of interest

The .viminfo log file notably includes:

• The files accessed through vim, in a most recently accessed list under the “# Jumplist (newest first)” section.

  Every file access is associated with two entries, one for the file opening and one for the file closing. Each entry contains:

  • The file path.

  • A Linux epoch timestamp, corresponding to either when the file was opened or closed (depending on the entry).

  • The line and character number of the cursor position when the file was opened (first entry) or closed (last entry).

  Subsequent openings of the same file do not erase previous entries for the file.

  The “jumplist” section stores, by default, up to 100 entries, so up to the last 50 files accessed. However, it appears that a single file access may generate multiple sets of two identical opening / closing entries, reducing the overall history available.

  Example of two entries associated with the first opening of the file (cursor at line 1, character 0) and closing (cursor at line 3, character 10):

  # Jumplist (newest first):
  -'  4  10  ~/.zshrc
  |4,39,4,10,1728596893,"~/.zshrc"
  -'  1  0  ~/.zshrc
  |4,39,1,0,1728596856,"~/.zshrc"
  

• The files accessed may also be referenced under the “# File marks” and “# History of marks within files (newest to oldest)” sections.

  Entries in both sections also include the cursor position within the file and a timestamp (of when the given file was closed).

  While multiple “File marks” entries are logged upon multiple accesses to the same file, the “# History of marks within files” section only keep a single entry for a given file, which references the last closing of the file.

  The “# History of marks within files” section stores up to 100 entries as well, but as each file is uniquely referenced, the section may contain more historical data than the “jumplist” section. However, upon reaching the limit of 100 entries, it is not necessarily the latest entry that will be overwritten during the rotation. Thus, it is not possible to draw a conclusion on all files accessed during the timeframe covered by the first and last entries if the history reaches 100 entries.

  # File marks:
  '1  4  10  ~/.zshrc
  |4,49,4,10,1728596893,"~/.zshrc"
  
  # History of marks within files (newest to oldest):
  > ~/.zshrc
          *       1728596891      0
          "       4       10
  

• The histories of the commands (such as wq to close a file), searches, and expressions entered in vim, in three distinct sections.

  Each entry in these histories is associated with an epoch timestamp of occurrence. Only the last occurrence of a given command / search / expression is kept.