Blog of Leonid Mamchenkov

Basic Configuration

Text wrapping

As you code, sometimes text flows further than the width of the editor window. Some people like long lines to be wrapped (in other words, continued on the other line), while others prefer them unwrapped. You can configure Vim to behave according to your liking by adding “set wrap” or “set nowrap” to your .vimrc configuration file.

Flexible tabs

Tabulation is one of the hottest topics in programmers discussions when it comes to style. A very nice explanation of what is the problem with tabulations and spaces can be read at http://www.jwz.org/doc/tabs-vs-spaces.html. I must say though, that I don’t agree with author’s position on the subject.

The article does provide you with several options for vi/Vim configuration to control the behavior of the tabs. I will just add/repeat the ones I consider important.

Add “set tabstop=4” to your .vimrc to display all occurrences of Tab character (ASCII #9) as 4 spaces. This option will not change the text, it will only change the displaying of the text.

Add “set autoindent” to your .vimrc for Vim to automatically position the cursor with appropriate indentation level when you press Enter and want to write the next line of code. This is very useful when you are indenting your code in structures like loops and procedures.

Vim allows you to select a block of code and change it’s indentation level (either increase or decrease the level). Control the width of the indentation level with “set shiftwidth=4” in your .vimrc configuration file.

While you are in the command mode, Vim can complete the names of files and directories in case you want to open or save a file. In order to complete a file or a directory name you should start typing it’s name on the command prompt and then press the completion key. You can change the completion key to be almost anything you want with “set wildchar=” line in your .vimrc file.

If you need more information on this topic, read file /usr/share/doc/vim-common-6.1/docs/indent.txt.

Line numbering

While Vim always displays your current position in the status line, you might also want to see all lines numbered. To do that, you will need to add “set number” to your .vimrc.

If you need more information on this topic, read file /usr/share/doc/vim-common-6.1/docs/usr_03.txt.

Syntax highlighting

The first thing any developer will notice in Vim is excellent syntax highlighting. All popular languages are supported. Syntax files for less popular are available from Vim web site. Perl is supported out of the box.

Vim identifies keywords, comments, variables, strings, in-line POD and other standard parts of the program and highlights them. Vim supports two color modes: one for terminals with dark background color and another one for terminals with light background color. You can control these modes by specifying command “set bg=dark” and “set bg=light” in your .vimrc.

If you still don’t like the appearance of the code, stay tuned until “Color schemes” discussion.

If you need more information on this topic, read file /usr/share/doc/vim-common-6.1/docs/syntax.txt.

Text completion

One of Vim’s features I cannot live without is text completion. When editing, press Ctrl-n / Ctrl-p to cycle through the current word completion suggestions. Vim generates suggest list based on the words in the current file. If you need key completion to make suggestions from other files, then Vim by default understand the ctags file. Simply run “ctags *.p?” to generate ctags for all Perl files and modules in the current directory (assuming you are using “.pl” extension for Perl scripts and “.pm” extension for Perl modules). This Vim’s feature not only saves a tonne of time on typing, but greatly decreases the error rate, especially with long variable and procedure names in the code.

If you need more information on this topic, read file /usr/share/doc/vim-common-6.1/docs/usr_24.txt.

Window splitting

Sometimes I need to see two or more files simultaneously. While I can always start another Vim session in a separate terminal, it is not as comfortable at times as Vim’s window splitting feature.

Vim supports both vertical and horizontal window splitting. To split current window horizontally execute “:split” while in the normal mode. To split current window vertically, use “:vsplit” instead. If you don’t provide any filename as argument to split/vsplit then current filename is used. You further split resulting windows as much as you like. Use Ctrl-w w to cycle through the windows. “:close” will close the current windows. “:only” will close all windows except the current one.

If you need more information on this topic, read file /usr/share/doc/vim-common-6.1/docs/usr_08.txt.

Diff mode

Vim provides excellent facilities for checking and editing differences between two or more files. Execute “vimdiff main.pl main2.pl” (or “vim -d main.pl main2.pl“) from the command line to see difference made to file main.pl in file main2.pl.

Vim will show both files in vertical split window mode. When you will scroll in one window, Vim will automatically scroll another window for you. You can patch the individual differences using do and dp commands. do will get the patch from the neighbor window and apply it to the current buffer, while dp will apply the difference from the current buffer to the neighbor window.

If you need more information on this topic, read file /usr/share/doc/vim-common-6.1/docs/diff.txt.

Text folding

Yet another popular feature found in popular editors and IDEs is text folding. I think that folding is easier shown then explained.

Vim supports six folding methods: by indent, by expression, by syntax, by changes in the text, by marker, and manual folding. It is up to you which method to use. For the sake of the example, I will show how to configure folding by marker.

In order to tell Vim to use folding by marker add the following lines to your .vimrc:

" Folding configuration
set foldmethod=marker
" Edit and uncomment next line if you want non-default marker
"set foldmarker="{{{,}}}"

If you need more information on this topic, read files /usr/share/doc/vim-common-6.1/docs/usr_28.txt and /usr/share/doc/vim-common-6.1/docs/fold.txt.

Marks

One of Vim’s features that speeds up navigation is - marks. You can set a mark anywhere in the text and then quickly jump back to it. You can set several marks. You can set marks in several files and then quickly switch between them. I find myself set mark on the place I am currently working at with mc (m is for “mark”, c I use for “current”) and then quickly returning to the same place with 'c.

If you need more information on this topic, read file /usr/share/doc/vim-common-6.1/docs/motion.txt.

Vertical Indent Display

For some people indenting text horizontally is not enough. They need some kind of vertical indentation to help them see corresponding parts of the code. While I am not one of those people, I’ve seen this feature around so often that I decided to add it codemonkey’s .vimrc.

All you need to do to have vertical indent display with pipe (”|”) character is to add the following two lines to your .vimrc.

" This is for vertical indenting
set list
set listchars=tab:|
" NOTE the space char after last backslash.

“:set list” forces Vim to show hidden characters like tabulations, ends of lines, and ends of files. “:set listchars=tab:| ” asks Vim to show only tab characters and use a pipe (”|”) with a space (” “) to do so, instead of usual “^I” thing that Vim likes to show.

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