I have been using Vim, and I would really like to save my settings. The problem I am having is that I cannot find my .vimrc file, and it is not in the standard /home/user/.vimrc location. How might I find this file?
You need to create it. In most installations I've used it hasn't been created by default.
You usually create it as ~/.vimrc.
These methods work, if you already have a .vimrc file:
:scriptnames list all the .vim files that Vim loaded for you, including your .vimrc file.
:e $MYVIMRC open & edit the current .vimrc that you are using, then use Ctrl + G to view the path in status bar.
Short answer:
To create your vimrc, start up Vim and do one of the following:
:e $HOME/.vimrc " on Unix, Mac or OS/2
:e $HOME/_vimrc " on Windows
:e s:.vimrc " on Amiga
Insert the settings you want, and save the file.
Note that exisitence of this file will disable the compatible option. See below for details.
Long answer:
There are two kinds of vimrc:
the user vimrc in $HOME
the system vimrc in $VIM (on Amiga systems, s:.vimrc is considered a user vimrc)
The user vimrc file often does not exist until created by the user. If you cannot find $HOME/.vimrc (or $HOME/_vimrc on Windows) then you can, and probably should, just create it.
The system vimrc should normally be left unmodified and is located in the $VIM* directory. The system vimrc is not a good place you keep your personal settings. If you modify this file your changes may be overwritten if you ever upgrade Vim. Also, changes here will affect other users on a multi-user system. In most cases, settings in the user vimrc will override settings in the system vimrc.
From :help vimrc:
A file that contains initialization commands is called a "vimrc" file.
Each line in a vimrc file is executed as an Ex command line. It is
sometimes also referred to as "exrc" file. They are the same type of
file, but "exrc" is what Vi always used, "vimrc" is a Vim specific
name. Also see |vimrc-intro|.
Places for your personal initializations:
Unix $HOME/.vimrc or $HOME/.vim/vimrc
OS/2 $HOME/.vimrc, $HOME/vimfiles/vimrc
or $VIM/.vimrc (or _vimrc)
MS-Windows $HOME/_vimrc, $HOME/vimfiles/vimrc
or $VIM/_vimrc
Amiga s:.vimrc, home:.vimrc, home:vimfiles:vimrc
or $VIM/.vimrc
The files are searched in the order specified above and only the first
one that is found is read.
(MacOS counts as Unix for the above.)
Note that the mere existence of a user vimrc will change Vim's behavior by turning off the compatible option. From :help compatible-default:
When Vim starts, the 'compatible' option is on. This will be used when Vim
starts its initializations. But as soon as a user vimrc file is found, or a
vimrc file in the current directory, or the "VIMINIT" environment variable is
set, it will be set to 'nocompatible'. This has the side effect of setting or
resetting other options (see 'compatible'). But only the options that have
not been set or reset will be changed.
* $VIM may not be set in your shell, but is always set inside Vim. If you want to see what it's set to, start up Vim and use the command :echo $VIM
As additional information, mostly in macOS, the .vimrc file is located at directory:
/usr/share/vim/.vimrc
:echo($MYVIMRC)
will give you the location of your .vimrc file.
:e $MYVIMRC
will open it.
For whatever reason, these answers didn't quite work for me. This is what worked for me instead:
In Vim, the :version command gives you the paths of system and user vimrc and gvimrc files (among other things), and the output looks something like this:
system vimrc file: "$VIM/vimrc"
user vimrc file: "$HOME/.vimrc"
user exrc file: "$HOME/.exrc"
system gvimrc file: "$VIM/gvimrc"
user gvimrc file: "$HOME/.gvimrc"
The one you want is user vimrc file: "$HOME/.vimrc"
So to edit the file: vim $HOME/.vimrc
Source: Open vimrc file
on unix vim --version tells you the various locations of the vim config files :
system vimrc file: "$VIM/vimrc"
user vimrc file: "$HOME/.vimrc"
2nd user vimrc file: "~/.vim/vimrc"
user exrc file: "$HOME/.exrc"
defaults file: "$VIMRUNTIME/defaults.vim"
fall-back for $VIM: "/usr/share/vim"
Open Vim, and in normal mode type:
:echo $VIM
Useful Information can be obtained using the find command
find / -iname "*vimrc*" -type f 2>/dev/null
There are many answers already, but it can sometimes be useful to simply run a "find" for anything containing the name "vimrc".
The reason is that this will show you what files you actualy have available on the system currently, rather than what you might put on your system. (The information for which you would obtain from :version as explained in other answers.)
Example result on my system
On my system this produces
/usr/share/vim/vim82/vimrc_example.vim
/usr/share/vim/vim82/gvimrc_example.vim
/etc/vim/gvimrc
/etc/vim/vimrc
/etc/vim/vimrc.tiny
Which is quite useful because it tells us that there are 2 example files installed in the share directorys for both gvim and vim, and that there are also some system-wide config files below /etc/.
On my system, I also have a file at ~/.vimrc but this does not appear in this list because it is a link to another file, stored under ~/Linux-Config. But you won't have this directory, it's specific to machines I use on my own network.
Detailed Explanation of find syntax used
Explanation:
find starting at the root directory / (find works recursively)
anything containing the case insensitive regex *vimrc* which means any name with vimrc (case insensitive) in it somewhere, can be preceeded or followed by anything or nothing (*)
type = files (not directory/symlink etc)
throw all errors to /dev/null otherwise the output is spammed with unreadable errors from /proc
Here are a few more tips:
In Arch Linux the global one is at /etc/vimrc. There are some comments in there with helpful details.
Since the filename starts with a ., it's hidden unless you use ls -a to show ALL files.
Typing :version while in Vim will show you a bunch of interesting information including the file location.
If you're not sure what ~/.vimrc means look at this question.
Where is the .vimrc file? It depends on the OS. As you can see, you were looking for /home/$user/.vimrc, which probably means you are using BSD / Linux. Here are the locations for each OS...
BSD / Linux : /home/$user/.vimrc
SunOS / Solaris : /export/home/$user/.vimrc
MacOS : /Users/$user/.vimrc
Android : /data/media/$userid/.vimrc
Unix : $root/home/$user/.vimrc
AT&T Unix : $root/usr/$user/.vimrc
Unix-Derived :
/var/users/$user/.vimrc
/u01/$user/.vimrc
/usr/$user/.vimrc
/user/$user/.vimrc
/users/$user/.vimrc (Source: Wikipedia: Default home directory per operating system.)
If it doesn't exist, create it with ~/.vimrc.
In addition, the root user has their own special .vimrc file, which can be found in /root/.vimrc on BSD / Linux (and in equivalent locations for the other OS's).
The location is set in the $HOME variable, which is always set in Linux environments. (Source: StackExchange->Unix & Linux.)
I'd like to share how I set showing the line number as the default on Mac.
In a terminal, type cd. This will help you go to the home folder.
In the terminal, type vi .vimrc. This will create an empty vimrc system file which you want to use.
In the file, type set number, and then hit Esc on the keyboard and type in :wq. This will set the line number shown in the default setting file vimrc and save it.
vi something to see if this works. If not, try to restart the terminal completely.
If in a terminal, type in cd /usr/share/vim/, go to that folder, and type in ls. You can directly see a file named vimrc. But it's a system file that says read only. I feel it's not a good idea to try modify it. So following the above steps to create a vimrc by yourself is better. It worked for me.
actually you have one vimrc in
/etc/vimrc
when you edit something in there the changes will effect all users
if you don't want that you can create a local vimrc in
~/.vimrc
the changes here will only effect the one user
I tried everything in the previous answer and couldn't find a .vimrc file, so I had to make one.
I copied the example file, cp vimrc_example.vim ~/.vimrc.
I had to create the file, copying from /usr/share/vim/vim74/vimrc_example.vim to ~/.vimrc. Those were the instructions in the vimrc_example file.
My solution is for Unix for other operating systems. According to the Vim documentation, your destination path should be as follows:
For Unix and OS/2 : ~/.vimrc
For Amiga : s:.vimrc
For MS-DOS and Win32: $VIM\_vimrc
For OpenVMS : sys$login:.vimrc
The vimrc file in Ubuntu (12.04 (Precise Pangolin)): I tried :scriptnames in Vim, and it shows both /usr/share/vim/vimrc and ~/.vimrc.
But I had manually created ~/.vimrc.
In SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) and openSUSE the global one is located at /etc/vimrc.
To edit it, simply do vi /etc/vimrc.
From cmd (Windows):
C\Users\You> `vim foo.txt`
Now in Vim, enter command mode by typing: ":" (i.e. Shift + ;)
:tabedit $HOME/.vimrc
Unfortunately, there are so many answers and none of them helped me.
Until I ran
:checkhealth
in vim and found out that in my case, the vim config file should be named init.vim (under ~/.config/nvim/init.vim).
the name of the file in my system, installed with Garuda Linux is file:///etc/xdg/nvim/sysinit.vim, so try to find this file and add your custom changes.
I was attempting to edit my .vimrc file and this worked for me (macOS Ventura 13.0.1 December 2022).
touch ~/.vimrc
vim ~/.vimrc
I was then able to edit the file to my heart's content, and the next time I ran vim it picked up my changes.
if in Windows, it could be in your C directory under Program Files(x86) in the folder "vim"
I'm trying to add Pydiction into MacVim, I followed the readme file.
Put python_pydiction.vim in ~/.vim/after/ftplugin/ and write:
let g:pydiction_location = '~/pydiction/complete-dict'
into my .vimrc file. But when I press tab in MacVim, an error will rise:
undefined variable g:pydiction_location
Can anyone tell me where am I wrong ?
As discussed in the comments, you were editing a file that wasn't actually your .vimrc file. You may have typed:
:e vimrc
:e ~/vimrc
:e .vimrc
none of which will probably edit your actual .vimrc file. It must have a dot in front of it AND be located in your home directory. You can also type :pwd in vim to see the current working directory. If you do :e .vimrc it will create a new file in whatever directory you are in if it doesn't exist.
Do you use NERDTree? If so it seems that Pydiction and NERDTree conflict with each other in some way.
I share an user with other people.
Everyone has created a directory into home directory and everyone is working in his "own" directory.
I want to use my own setting when I use vim and I don't want to bother others with my preferences.
I created my .vimrc file into $HOME/my_directory
I've defined an alias my_vim="vim -u /full_path_to_home/my_directory/.vimrc"
When I edit a file with my_vim, I don't have the right colors.
I have the same problem when I use the command
:source /full_path_to_home/my_directory/.vimrc
If I copy my .vimrc file into $HOME directory, everything is fine.
Where is the problem ?
From :help vimrc
If Vim was started with "-u filename",
the file "filename" is used.
All following initializations until 4.
are skipped.
So by specifying a vimrc file, its ignoring the system-wide vimrc (/erc/vimrc/) where syntax highlighting and other things are configured. You can work around this problem by adding the following code to the top of your vimrc:
if filereadable("/etc/vimrc")
source /etc/vimrc
endif
If this sort of thing comes up a lot, I would recommend changing your $HOME to point to the current $HOME/my_directory whenever you log in.
I have a very simple and easy question, but I do not know how to do it. I am on a ubuntu machine, logged in via ssh. I want to edit my vim so that I dont have to keep typing :set number or :colorscheme elflord. I would like it to remember that information. When browsing around I found out that I need to change a .vimrc file, and that is supposedly located in my home directory, however it is not, and furthermore #locate .vimrc does not locate anything. Can any help me with finding where this file is and editing the above commands?
Create ~/.vimrc with the lines you want in it:
set number
colorscheme elflord
See :help vimrc and :help vimrc-intro for more information.
Your global vimrc is located in /etc/vim you can just create a .vimrc in your home directory. This question however should be asked on http://unix.stackexchange.com or http://askubuntu.com.
You may edit it from anywhere with this command:
:e $MYVIMRC
If the file doesn't exist, just create it in ~/.vimrc
I code in Vim, not an IDE.
My source code is often nested 2-3 directories deep.
~/foo$ find
xyz
bar/abc
bar/def
~/foo$ vim
// inside of vim
:e bar/abc
... some work ...
:e <-- is there a way I can have this :e start in ~/foo/bar instead of ~/foo ?
Basically, I want :e to start the directory in "pathname of last edited file"
Thanks!
There's a lot of reasons not to like autochdir as it messes up some plugins and if you end up doing :e ../../../foo.txt you are not gaining anything. Just as an idea try this cmap I knocked up
:cnoremap red edit <c-r>=expand("%:h")<cr>/
then you can type :red and get
:e /the/path/to/your/current/files/dir/
(edit: perhaps use z instead of red as there are commands that start with red)
To expand the topic, also check out the FuzzyFinder plugin and some custom mappings to rapidly jump to common files you are always editing. Eg
10 or so of your regular files should be no more than 2 keystrokes away. It helps if they are systematically named
Here's an idea I use for django.
http://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/UsingVimWithDjango#Mappings
Try the autochdir option. It will automatically change the current working directory to whatever file was most recently opened or selected. In .vimrc:
set autochdir
For more info, :help autochdir
To always change the working directory to the current file's directory I have this in my .vimrc:
if has("autocmd")
autocmd BufEnter * :lcd %:p:h
endif " has("autocmd")
Sorry, but vim's :edit command takes a path which is interpreted relative to the present working directory of the vim instance.
You do have a :cd command which you could use to :cd bar then work for a while, then :cd ...
Hope that help some.
Some time ago I asked questions related to this on the vim mailing list: http://www.mail-archive.com/vim_use#googlegroups.com/msg03266.html Maybe you will find useful tips in that thread.
I tested a lot of plugins, but since CLI based GUIs are not my taste, I simply ended up using standard vim with a few configuration settings.
As honk pointed out, this line sets the working directory to the same as the file your working on:
autocmd BufEnter * lcd %:p:h
My other tip is to use the wildmenu. It makes it easier to get an overview of the files in your current directory when you go :e and then TAB. I'm a python programmer so the last line shows how to hide auto generated files that the python interpreter spits out, but you could use it to hide java .class files or c .obj files or whatever.
set wildmode=list:longest
set wildignore=*.pyc,*pyo
:cd changes directory
:pwd prints the current one.
why not just :E? Explore directory of current file.
:help :E
This isn't exactly what you wanted, but check out NERDTree.
On vim/gVim I just have cd C:/blah/blah at the top of my vimrc. I imagine it works on all platforms.
I personally use vagrant for each project so one CD is enough, but I think you can get vim to use different config files too, -u flag I think.
Or map a key to each project you have so pressing Ctrl+F1 does cd path/to/project/1 and Ctrl+F2 does cd path/to/project/2 perhaps?
Note: I don't use any plugins