In ViM what is Buffer 0?

Question

The vim commands buflisted(0) and bufexists(0) return true if I have single file open.

I don't understand this because the output of ls shows that file as buffer 1 (and buflisted(1) and bufexists(1) also returns true). And if I try any buffer operation on buffer 0 I get the error message Zero count .

This seems like a special buffer but I can't find any information that tells me what buffer 0 is used for. Can anybody help?

Thanks!

Answer 1

That 0 is explained in :help bufname() . It's the "alternate buffer" of the current buffer.