In my .vimrc I've got a generic tab setting of two spaces, and I'd like to override that on a per language basic (that is, four for Python, etc, otherwise use the default), but I'm having trouble finding any good example of this.
5 Answers
Just put the settings into the filetype plugin file ~/.vim/ftplugin/LANGUAGE.vim . My ~/.vim/ftplugin/perl.vim contains the lines:
"
" ---------- tabulator / shiftwidth --------------------
" Set tabulator and shift width to 4 (Perl Style Guide)
"
setlocal tabstop=4
setlocal shiftwidth=4
"
These settings will automatically be in effect for each file with file type 'perl' (new or existing).
Typically what you do is set up a special vimrc-type file with the settings for a particular language, and then use autocommands in your main .vimrc to execute the special vimrc when necessary. Here's my configuration for Haskell (.hs, etc.) files:
autocmd! BufNewFile,BufReadPre,FileReadPre *.hs so ~/.vim/haskell.vim
autocmd! BufNewFile,BufReadPre,FileReadPre *.hsc so ~/.vim/haskell.vim
autocmd! BufNewFile,BufReadPre,FileReadPre *.lhs so ~/.vim/haskell.vim
autocmd! BufNewFile,BufReadPre,FileReadPre *.cabal so ~/.vim/haskell.vim
My ~/.vim/haskell.vim does stuff like "set expandtab" to use spaces instead of tabs, and all sorts of other magic for formatting and things like this. You can often download good versions of these for various languages from http://vim.org and other sites.
Note that you can do a lot more than just change vim settings. For example, you can run the file through a filter before and after editing:
" Edit gpg-encrypted ascii-armoured files
autocmd! BufReadPre,FileReadPre *.asc set bin
autocmd BufReadPost,FileReadPost *.asc '[,']!gpg -q -d
autocmd BufReadPost,FileReadPost *.asc set nobin
autocmd! BufWritePre,FileWritePre *.asc set bin
autocmd BufWritePre,FileWritePre *.asc '[,']!gpg -e
autocmd BufWritePost,FileWritePost *.asc undo
autocmd BufWritePost,FileWritePost *.asc set nobin
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