vim tabular only on the first match on the line?

Question

I'm trying to format some python code with the tabular.vim plugin. It's currently a sqlalchemy declarative class, and looks something like this:

id     =  db.Column(db.Integer, primary_key=True)
status    =  db.Column(db.Integer, nullable=False, default=3)
...etc...

I'd like to be able to align only the very first equals sign in the list.

id     =  db.Column(db.Integer, primary_key=True)
status =  db.Column(db.Integer, nullable=False, default=3)
...etc...

Just a regular

: Tabularize /=

seems to match everything, and everything goes crazy.

Thanks very much in advance!

kev · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-16T04:15:36.167

26

You can use this command:

:Tabularize /^[^=]*\zs=

The pattern only matches the first =.

You can add these two line to ~/.vim/after/plugin/TabularMaps.vim

AddTabularPattern 1=    /^[^=]*\zs=
AddTabularPattern 1==   /^[^=]*\zs=/r0c0l0

Next time, simply run:

:Tabularize 1=

If you don't need spaces around =, run this:

:Tabularize 1==

edited Jul 16 '12 at 04:15

answered Jul 16 '12 at 04:03

kev

155,172
47
273
272

This isn't vim builtin function, isn't it ? – FlogFR May 26 '14 at 10:23
Nope, it's part of the Tabular plugin: https://github.com/godlygeek/tabular, http://vimcasts.org/episodes/aligning-text-with-tabular-vim/ – bshacklett Mar 07 '17 at 20:22
So... how can I handle the last match of the line? I've tried to aligh the final `,` via `/.*,[^,]*\zs`, but doesn't work – Marslo May 10 '21 at 08:14

score 22 · Answer 2 · answered May 24 '14 at 01:23

The suggestions above are good, but in this case they are a little too complicated and require too much typing. How about:

:Tab /=.*/

This works just fine -- match the first equal sign and everything after it, aligned left (default, which works just fine!).

score 7 · Answer 3 · answered May 23 '14 at 14:06

7

Excellent plugin to do it: vim-easy-align.

answered May 23 '14 at 14:06

FlogFR

729
7
14

score 2 · Answer 4 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:25

2

As per this answer, instead of creating a static mapping for each case, you can do this dynamically by setting up a vim command like this:

command! -nargs=1 -range TabFirst exec <line1> . ',' . <line2> . 'Tabularize /^[^' . escape(<q-args>, '\^$.[?*~') . ']*\zs' . escape(<q-args>, '\^$.[?*~')

With this command, if you wanted to align based on the first = then you could do:

:TabFirst =

Or, if you wanted to align on the first { you could do:

:TabFirst {

This supports range selections as well as Tabularize's smart selection.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:25

Community

1
1

answered Dec 11 '13 at 22:23

Javid Jamae

8,741
4
47
62

This seems to be the better answer. – Sudar Feb 14 '15 at 05:37

vim tabular only on the first match on the line?

4 Answers4

Linked