Configuring Vim for C++

Question

I would like to make vim my C++ editor. I have very little experience working with it and need help in configuring vim to work with C++. I need such features as

code-complete (for stl and for my classes)
switching between .cc and .h files
may be some more tricks you, C++ and vim gurus, have.

May be you could provide some configs (with explanations), or links to tutorials, plugins I could make use of?

+1 for the sheer masochism of wanting to use vim as your IDE :) vim has its uses (especially for editing files remotely in my experience), but anyone who actually *wants* to use it for code editing has chutzpah in my view. — Stuart Golodetz, Nov 21 '10 at 15:35
@sgolodetz: Then there are quite a lot of people with chutzpah out there. — Cascabel, Nov 21 '10 at 16:35
@Jefromi: Yup I do realise that :) It has always seemed like masochism to me though...in a sort of slightly admirable way. — Stuart Golodetz, Nov 21 '10 at 16:40
@wilhelmtell: I guess you could read it that way if you wanted -- actually I was just bored whilst doing some work on my doctorate and saw a post I felt like commenting on. Not really interested in starting a big debate on the merits of vim or otherwise, just stating a point of view. Personally I find vim helpful when editing the odd text file using Putty, but using it as my IDE doesn't seem in any way appealing. At the same time, I have a certain amount of respect for anyone who does use it for that -- they obviously have a higher pain threshold than I do. — Stuart Golodetz, Nov 21 '10 at 21:32
In retrospect, I guess posting the equivalent of "I'm a bit dubious about vim" on a post likely to be frequented by a lot of vim enthusiasts might have been a little provocative -- it was meant to be a tongue-in-cheek comment rather than the start of an argument though. — Stuart Golodetz, Nov 21 '10 at 21:44
I did give [this answer](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/149558/recommended-vim-plugins-for-c-coding/152448#152448) which was initially restricted to C development. However every thing I said is still valid for C++. — Luc Hermitte, Nov 21 '10 at 22:23

score 169 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 16 '15 at 17:22

169

Code complete: Omni completion or Clang autocomplete or YouCompleteMe
Real time syntax checking: Syntastic
Switching between source and header file: A plugin
Snippets: Snipmate or UltiSnip
Search for reference of variables, functions, classes, etc.: Cscope
Go to definition: Ctags or part of YouCompleteMe subcommands mentioned above
Refactoring tools: Refactor, lh-refactor
Useful text objects: Arg text object and Class text object
C++ category in Vim Tips wiki
Luc Hermitte's C/C++ plugin
Not C++ specific but I also recommend either FuzzyFinder or Command-T or Unite for file navigation. With either of these, you don't even need tabs (which does not scale for 10+ files) to manage your project.
Class navigation: Taglist or Tagbar

Edit: Updated as of July 2013

edited Mar 16 '15 at 17:22

Luc Hermitte

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answered Nov 21 '10 at 16:23

Thanh DK

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I've fixed the link to my C&C++ ftplugins suite. Thanks for the "advertizing" :) – Luc Hermitte Nov 21 '10 at 21:25
Also I may recomend FSwitch plugin instead of A plugin. – Sergey Miryanov Feb 26 '13 at 04:13
1

Luc's lhCpp is incompatible with vundle (I think due to svn repo) and no install process I like personally - recommend checking out https://github.com/Raimondi/delimitMate – netpoetica Sep 15 '13 at 14:28
Because of all dependencies in my plugins suite, I highly recommend to install it with VimAddonManager (type `:InstallAddon lh-cpp`, or `call vam#ActivateAddons(['lh-cpp'])` in your .vimrc, and you should be done with it) . This way I can keep my (viml) code base DRY and focus on advanced features. – Luc Hermitte Jan 23 '14 at 16:35
2

+1 a very complete (and up to date) answer deserves it, it's nice to see some of the more reclusive members posting these great answers. How thorough your answer is, is quite helpful, while at the same time not overwhelming, even to a new vim user. – osirisgothra Jul 21 '14 at 10:58
1

How about vim-rtags? It's good for c++ code navigation, has a rename functionality. – P4C Jul 28 '16 at 09:57
I know this is an old thread, however useful for people stumbling here; here is a vimrc which I use for C/C++ and python development with autocompletion of code https://github.com/tbhaskar78/vimrc/blob/master/vimrc – Bhaskar Tallamraju Jul 28 '20 at 04:02

score 10 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 21 '10 at 12:46

I'm using vim as my C++ editor, however I'm not using many 'exotic' stuff.

Regarding completion, I'm using the non-contextual ^P and ^N.
I have a bunch of user defined abbreviations for my C++ use, for example :
```
abbreviate bptr boost::shared_ptr
abbreviate cstr const std::string &
```

I have several functions for "code snippets" like things, for example :

function! IncludeGuard()
  let basename = expand("%:t:r")
  let includeGuard = '__' . basename . '_h__'
  call append(0, "#ifndef " . includeGuard)
  call append(1, "#define " . includeGuard)
  call append(line("$"), "#endif /* !" . includeGuard . " */")
endfunction

The only plugin I really couldn't live without is Command-T (which requires ruby support)
For easy .cc to .h switching, you can try this plugin

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 21 '10 at 14:17

NERDTree http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1658

Exuberant ctags (vim already supports the hotkeys natively) http://ctags.sourceforge.net/

taglist: http://vim-taglist.sourceforge.net/

snipmate: http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2540

I don't do omnicompletion just the usual ^n ^p stuff but there are plenty of resources to google for.

Configuring Vim for C++

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