Using VIM as a Frontend for MySQL

Being deeply dissatisfied with MySQL Workbench, which tends to go nonresponsive on me at least once per day, I started looking around for other solutions. Since I'm a VIM aficionado, this occurred to me as one of the places to look. Of course, I got lucky.

Here's the solution (It's a slightly modified version of the code found here: http://superuser.com/questions/266934/how-to-pass-vim-buffer-contents-through-shell-command-and-capture-the-output-to):

function! FilterToNewWindow(script)

    let TempFile = tempname()

    let SaveModified = &modified

    exe 'w ' . TempFile

    let &modified = SaveModified

    exe 'split ' . TempFile

    exe '.! ' . a:script

    exe 'setlocal buftype=nofile'

    exe 'setlocal bufhidden=hide'

    exe 'setlocal noswapfile'

    exe 'setlocal noet'

    exe 'setlocal ts=25'

    exe 'setlocal number'

endfunction

command! MF call FilterToNewWindow('mysql --defaults-file=/etc/mysql/debian.cnf -t <DATABASENAME>')

Paste the above code into your .vimrc, open a new vim, and...:

• Enter a SQL command into current buffer
• Do :MF at the line you wish to use in mysql
• A new buffer will open up with the results of your query. (Actually, of course, it's the other way around, but who cares...)
• This buffer will be a scratch buffer, so you don't get an ugly error message when doing :q

You should use the mysql defaults file, otherwise your mysql credentials will end up in (I guess) your bash history. The -t argument will make mysql export its results in the nice table format used in the mysql command line client. setlocal number, noet and ts (tabsize) are not necessary, but I want them in my scratch buffer anyway.

Of course, you can use FilterToNewWindow() with all kinds of external programs. I'm sure I will put it to good use in the future.