Spawns {cmd} as a job. If {cmd} is a List it runs directly (no 'shell'). If {cmd} is a String it runs in the 'shell', like this:

:call jobstart(split(&shell) + split(&shellcmdflag) + ['{cmd}'])

(See shell-unquoting for details.)

Example:

:call jobstart('nvim -h', {'on_stdout':{j,d,e->append(line('.'),d)}})

Returns job-id on success, 0 on invalid arguments (or job table is full), -1 if {cmd}[0] or 'shell' is not executable. The returned job-id is a valid channel-id representing the job's stdio streams. Use chansend() (or rpcnotify() and rpcrequest() if "rpc" was enabled) to send data to stdin and chanclose() to close the streams without stopping the job.

See job-control and RPC.

NOTE: on Windows if {cmd} is a List:

• cmd[0] must be an executable (not a "built-in"). If it is in $PATH it can be called by name, without an extension:

  :call jobstart(['ping', 'neovim.io'])
  

  If it is a full or partial path, extension is required:

  :call jobstart(['System32\ping.exe', 'neovim.io'])
  

• {cmd} is collapsed to a string of quoted args as expected by CommandLineToArgvW https://msdn.microsoft.com/bb776391 unless cmd[0] is some form of "cmd.exe".

The job environment is initialized as follows: $NVIM is set to v:servername of the parent Nvim $NVIM_LISTEN_ADDRESS is unset $NVIM_LOG_FILE is unset $VIM is unset $VIMRUNTIME is unset You can set these with the env option.

{opts} is a dictionary with these keys: clear_env: (boolean) env defines the job environment exactly, instead of merging current environment. cwd: (string, default=current-directory) Working directory of the job. detach: (boolean) Detach the job process: it will not be killed when Nvim exits. If the process exits before Nvim, on_exit will be invoked. env: (dict) Map of environment variable name:value pairs extending (or replace with "clear_env") the current environment. jobstart-env height: (number) Height of the pty terminal. on_exit: (function) Callback invoked when the job exits. on_stdout: (function) Callback invoked when the job emits stdout data. on_stderr: (function) Callback invoked when the job emits stderr data. overlapped: (boolean) Set FILE_FLAG_OVERLAPPED for the standard input/output passed to the child process. Normally you do not need to set this. (Only available on MS-Windows, On other platforms, this option is silently ignored.) pty: (boolean) Connect the job to a new pseudo terminal, and its streams to the master file descriptor. on_stdout receives all output, on_stderr is ignored. terminal-start rpc: (boolean) Use msgpack-rpc to communicate with the job over stdio. Then on_stdout is ignored, but on_stderr can still be used. stderr_buffered: (boolean) Collect data until EOF (stream closed) before invoking on_stderr. channel-buffered stdout_buffered: (boolean) Collect data until EOF (stream closed) before invoking on_stdout. channel-buffered stdin: (string) Either "pipe" (default) to connect the job's stdin to a channel or "null" to disconnect stdin. width: (number) Width of the pty terminal.

{opts} is passed as self dictionary to the callback; the caller may set other keys to pass application-specific data.

Returns:

• channel-id on success
• 0 on invalid arguments
• -1 if {cmd}[0] is not executable. See also job-control, channel, msgpack-rpc.