Vim autocmd (save file, run code formatter, reload file)

Question

I wish to integrate the source code formatter Uncrustify with Vim. Any of the below two options will suffice.

1. Format the code that I am currently editing (ie when gq is pressed).
2. Format the code when I save the file and then reload the formatted file into current Vim window.

Option 1 is preferable. I tried

set formatprg=uncrustify\ -c ~/misc/uncrustify.cfg --no-backup

ie I call Uncrustify with command line options. This does not work. Vi gives the E518: Unknown option: ~/misc/uncrustify.cfg error.

For option 2, I tried the following in the vimrc file

autocmd bufwritepost *.cpp ! ~/bin/uncrustify -c ~/misc/uncrustify.cfg --no-backup <afile>

The file is formatted after the save, but I have to manually reload the file into Vim.

Answer 1

Have you tried escaping whitespaces:

:set formatprg=uncrustify\\ -c\\ ~/misc/uncrustify.cfg\\ --no-backup

UPDATE

uncrustify prints "Parsing: 170 bytes ..." message to stderr so we need to redirect it to /dev/null :

:set formatprg=uncrustify\\ -c\\ ~/misc/uncrustify.cfg\\ -l\\ CPP\\ --no-backup\\ 2>/dev/null

gq operates on lines, so you can select necessary lines in visual mode and execute gq . For example, if you want to reformat whole file execute ggVGgq .

More info at :help gq