Does anyone know of a way to get vim to guess the programming language of a new file based on your input and use the appropriate syntax highlighting? So far the syntax highlighting only works when it knows the file extension (after I have saved it), which is good, but sometimes I am lazy and want to make a new file without saving it until later.
e.g. if I were to start a new file and type:
#include <stdlib.h>
I would like it to automatically start using C syntax highlighting, say after I hit enter, and the same goes for other languages like Python.
I am a bit of a noob with vim and don't know vimscript, so don't make it too complicated please. Any help is appreciated.
Thanks, Simon
Vim uses both file path / name / extension and certain characteristic file contents to detect the filetype; what is used depends on the particular type.
You can re-trigger the detection via
:filetype detect
For C / C++, the detection is based on file extensions. To add a contents-based detection, you'd have to write this yourself; see :help new-filetype-scripts for details. In practice, I'd recommend to just manually :setf c when the need arises.
This could be arranged, but performance could be a slight problem (depending on how clever you want to be) and it is much easier to just set the syntax manually:
:setf c
You could also set the buffer filename; this will set the syntax accordingly, normally:
:file x.c
(This does not save the file.)
If you really do want automatic guessing, you'd be using an autocmd to trigger it, and could then guess the filetype if &ft is empty (i.e. if it hasn't already done so).
Related
Is there anyway to have vim display something that is different from the actual text in a file?
For example, is it possible to make it so that when a file contains:
link
Vim displays
[link]
Thanks in advance.
Yes, it is possible. Writing a vim syntax file is a little arcane, so you might look first to see if someone has already written something that does what you want. For example, try http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Patch_to_conceal_parts_of_lines#Using_Conceal. (If the fragment gets lost, then scroll down to the section on "Using Conceal". A quick search on Google and on GitHub did not turn up anything better.) The starting point in the docs is
:help conceal
or back up a little and start reading at :help :syn-arguments.
This feature was quite controversial when it was first introduced. Initially, Bram refused to include it, but now the syntax file for vim help files in the standard distribution uses the feature.
I did some experimentation. Try this. You can always add syntax rules; the latest wins. So as long as this gets :sourced after the regular HTML syntax file, you should be good. Remember to set 'conceallevel' to something other than the default, and that 'concealcursor' matters for the current line.
syn region htmlLink matchgroup=htmlLinkTag start="<a\>\_[^>]*>" end="</a>" contains=#Spell,htmlTag,htmlEndTag,htmlSpecialChar,htmlPreProc,htmlComment,javaScript,#htmlPreproc
syn match htmlLinkTag "<a\>\_[^>]*>" conceal cchar=[
syn match htmlLinkTag "</a>" conceal cchar=]
I am a little afraid that this might highlight too much with the htmlLinkTag group.
I started using AutoComplPop for automatic code completions. It works great on the single file I am editing, but if file1 is making a reference to a method defined in file2, it doesn't find it.
The docs don't specify if there is a way to make it search a whole project directory, or even just all open buffers, so I can't tell if this is simply not something the plugin does, or if I need to enable something.
I was testing it out on two Ruby files, if that's relevant. Thanks!
Looks like that the cause of the problem is that ACP set the complete option for its purposes to .,w,b,k (see line #125 in autocomplpop/plugin/acp.vim),
call l9#defineVariableDefault('g:acp_completeOption', '.,w,b,k')
while the default value that is used when pressing \<C-n> is .,w,b,u,t,i. And it appears that the very last letter i actually makes the difference: for some reason vim would not use word from an include file opened in a buffer to complete words in another buffer. So, b option is not enough, i must also be included. Adding the following line into my .vimrc helped
let g:acp_completeOption = '.,w,b,u,t,i'
At least it worked for C++ files, but I'm not sure it fixes the problem for the case of Ruby scripts.
Depending on what is on the left of the cursor, ACP (like all the alternatives) decides what completion mechanism to use.
But ACP only uses Vim's default completion mechanisms: if <C-x><C-o> and <C-n>/<C-p> don't provide what you are looking for, ACP won't help. Try them out first.
Oh cool, this plugin looks a lot like neocomplcache but maybe cleaner...looks a little old. Little concerning that there are so many open tickets on that project and no updates in two years.
Anyway, according to the documentation it doesn't...really...say. Very likely its one of the following things:
Your pwd. If the root directory for your source is some/path then that should also be your current working directory. Try typing :cd some/path to see if that makes a difference.
The runtime path rtp. See if adding the directory with your source files to &rtp does the trick.
The path. Same deal as the &rtp setting.
Very likely this plugin is just falling back on the built in ruby omni completion functions bundled with vim. Try help ft-ruby-omni.
I just had the same problem, and I actually found a solution for this.
Apparently you have to set in your .vimrc file the following:
let g:acp_behaviorKeywordCommand = "\<C-x>\<C-i>"
This will make acp look in every file included by your source for completions, as if you were actually typing <C-p>. However, it is slow, after trying it I decided to revert using <C-p> when there are no matches and default behaviour in the other cases.
I have access to a syntax highlighting program for an internal-only language. Is there any way in which I could get vim to call this program to perform syntax highlighting? I figure that it's worth seeing if this is possible before I write my own syntax file, since it's quite complex (not to mention prone to change). The program in question could be quite easily customized to output in a new intermediate format (it's only currently outputting HTML), if that would make things easier.
I would suggest to write a quick throwaway script in the language of
your choice to convert the output of the program in question to the Vim
highlighting syntax. You mentioned the program is prone to change, but
its output format can be easily customized: using your own conversion
script (which parses the programs output format) you could easily stay
up-to-date with the latest changes (just run your script again). And as
others have mentioned: creating a new syntax file is really easy in Vim,
so it's up to the complexity of the programs output how hard this actually is.
Yes, you can use vim job/channels to communicate with external process and highlight text using textprops.
Type :help channel and :help textprop in vim to get more info.
This method is used to implement treesitter highlighting in vim-treesitter plugin
Suppose I have a file, whose entire contents is:
\u1234
and suppose 1234 is the code for \alpha
is there a way to, in vim, have the "\1234" show up as a single \alpha symbol (and be treated as an \alpha symbol) ?
Thanks!
[This problem arises since I want to to use unicode names in g++]
I really don't think this is possible, since vim is designed to present and edit the actual contents of a file (it is not a WYSIWIG editor). I wouldn't recommend it for the exact same reasons, even if you find a way to do it - it will lead to confusion in the future (once you forget the feature, or if it is triggered in a document you weren't expecting, or the script contains a bug, etc.)
There is a plugin for Vim to display certain characters in Haskell as the Unicode symbol: http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2603.
It even decodes the symbols to their text-representation before writing (and vice versa after reading a Haskell file).
I guess you can do the same, just inspect the plugin's source.
One thing you could do is define custom highlighting so that you know that that character maps to something else. May not be exactly what you want but as soulmerge points out anything else may be dangerous/unclear.
I am rather new to VIM. I got some source code and this is a mess. At a first sight I would like at least to get a clear and organised view of the code, so I like to get it rightly formatted, I mean indented depending on the depth of the functions and so.
I wonder if it can be done with VIM, and otherwise which other commandline tools for that can you recommend.
Thanks
While vim is a true Swiss-knife I still prefer external tools for some jobs. This approach is some times much more intuitive and easy to remember than using the built-in equivalent.
In the case of indenting, I filter the whole file buffer through astyle. The astyle parameters are much easier to grasp in a couple of minutes, especially if you are not a vim guru. Also astyle provides much more flexibility in fine-tuning the output.
First install astyle:# apt-get install astyle
Then inside vim:
:%!astyle (simple case - astyle default mode is C/C++)
or
:%!astyle --mode=c --style=ansi -s2 (ansi C++ style, use two spaces per indent level)
or
:1,40!astyle --mode=c --style=ansi (ansi C++ style, filter only lines 1-40)
you can do the following:
gg=G
I would highly recommend clang-format nowadays. It allows simple integration of clang-format into Vim, once you have clang-format installed:
http://clang.llvm.org/docs/ClangFormat.html#vim-integration
It is the only code beautifier that really understands your C++ code, and it is really intelligent to beautify the code more like a human being than a machine. E.g.:
void TestFunction(int argument1, int argument2,
int argument3);
void TestFunctionVeryLongName(int argument1,
int argument2,
int argument3);
void TestFunctionWithRidiculouslyLongName(
int argument1, int argument2, int argument3);
Vim will definitely do this, although the results may not be perfect:
First, select the entire file in visual mode: ggVG
Then hit = to reindent everything.
You can learn more about the equal command with: :help =
There is also a Vim plugin relying on clang-format: vim-clang-format
Then you can simply map the formatting command to whatever suits you.
There is a vim plugin that enables formatting on your code from within vim. It's called vim-autoformat and you can download it here:
https://github.com/vim-autoformat/vim-autoformat
It integrates external code-formatting programs into vim. For example, if you want to format C, C++, C# or Java code, you need to install the program astyle, and vim sets it as the format program automatically.
I don't write C++ code, but I write some Java code.
Instead, Vim supports the formatting of some common languages.
I have set up a short cut for me to format the whole code in the buffer.
It will return to the line I just edited :)
" format the file
map <leader>fm gg=G'.
A generic solution along the lines of m000's idea is to use UniversalIndentGUI as an external tool.
Just had to solve this exact problem, so I thought I'd contribute to save others some time.
You can use gg=G to indent your code. But things get hard to understand the moment you want to tweak how that auto-indenting happens. Therefore, if you only care that errant whitespace is removed and don't really care about formatting style, gg=G is the quickest way to go about it, because its built-in.
If you do want to control the style (for example, you're trying to make your code conform to a style guide), then you're going to need an external tool to process your file. You can invoke that tool from within vim with: :%!<toolname> <options>. This pipes the file through the tool and re-loads the processed result. (You can obviously use this for anything else you want to do to your file too)
So the next question is, what external tool should you choose? Regardless, the method is the same:
Install the tool of choice
Make sure its in your path
Add a line to your vimrc file that creates a shortcut key to use so you save time
Use it.
Now, which tool you use depends on the style you're trying to replicate. If you're trying to replicate a widely used style, then chances are astyle is all you need.
If you're trying to replicate a custom style, then you will need two things:
UniversalIndentGui - a front end that lets you play around with various options and live-preview their effect on the source file
A set of source code formatting tools installed and in your path
Between uncrustify and greatcode, you should be able to completely replicate the style you want.
Actually, I lied. There is another way and its called clang-format. However, you're going to want to read the documentation on it and its still in early stages so some options don't work very well. It is a beautiful tool though (definitely the smartest of the lot because constructs an AST of your code) and it is even available for Windows.
If you're going to take the time to read the manual, you also want to check out GNU Indent.
Of course, there is the last way, which is actually taking the time to learn vim's indent rules and writing one for your style. It will take time, but it will work with gg=G.
Some notes on astyle vs uncrustify vs greatcode:
Astyle is good for general formatting, but can't do things like align the declaration of variables and re-style comments very well.
Uncrustify can do a LOT of stuff that astyle can't, but be prepared to spend an hour playing around until you've found the correct combination of options you need. (Or if you feel like wasting a lot of time, use genetic algorithms to figure out the best combination of options for your style and when you do share the code and give me a link so I can use it too :) )
Note that you don't have to choose one tool. With vim, you can map one keystroke to execute several commands in succession, so theoretically you could use a combination of these tools to get exactly what you're looking for.
Last but not least, here's an excerpt from my .vimrc file, where I have mapped F12 to invoke astyle with some options:
"A2 = attached brackets
"-s8 indent 8 spaces
"-xc attached braces to class declarations
"-xj remove braces for single statement ifs and elses
"-c convert tabs to spaces in the non-indentation part of the line
map <F12> :%!astyle -A2 -s8 -xc -xj -c<CR>
Don't judge me on the style. Just use the tool to reproduce what you want.