also the way you can use shell - hmmm I'd like all the build timestamps of my 6.4 bootroms... alright I'll put all the filenames in the buffer ls /tftp/bo

also the way you can use shell - hmmm I'd like all the build timestamps of my 6.4 bootroms... alright I'll put all the filenames in the buffer ls /tftp/bootroms/foobar/foobar_6.4_*.bin | gvim - I'll run an awk one-liner to print the filename and date seperated by a tab :%!awk '{ printf("\%s\t", $0); system("strings " $0 " | grep '\''20[0-2][0-9],'\''") }' I don't want that long path :1,$s:.*/:: I know, I'll sort them by build date :%!sort -r -k4 -k2M -k3n -k5 Oh yuck 4 space tabs don't do it :set ts=16 :set expandtab :retab