Enable syntax highlighting for various filetypes in vim

Question

I can enable syntax highlighting for a file that has an extension that is unknown to vim by doing the following

set syntax=c

Every time I switch tabs however, I have to renter the command. Is there any way to let vim know that a file with an extension .xyz should be coloured with C syntax?

Dan Loewenherz · Answer 1 · 2013-02-28T03:27:20.263

26

Put this at the end of your .vimrc (I'm assuming you have autocommands enabled).

autocmd BufRead,BufNewFile *.xmlx set filetype=xml

edited Feb 28 '13 at 03:27

answered Dec 08 '09 at 20:59

Dan Loewenherz

10,879
7
50
81

4

Hmm... how is this answer answered on December 8, 2009 when the question was asked March 25, 2011? +1 nonetheless... – Samaursa May 10 '12 at 17:00
Whoa, very weird... I think this must be an SO bug. This answer must have been for another question, otherwise I wouldn't have mentioned XML. – Dan Loewenherz May 10 '12 at 17:20
2

@Samaursa This question was merged from http://stackoverflow.com/q/1869777/427545 – Lekensteyn Oct 05 '12 at 21:55
I don't recommend using BufEnter. That's triggered whenever focus enters the buffer. As a result, Vim will re-parse the file every time you switch to it. For some syntaxes and files, this can be quite slow. – Justin L. Feb 28 '13 at 02:38
@JustinL. thanks for the tip--BufRead seems to be a better idea. – Dan Loewenherz Feb 28 '13 at 03:05

zarkdav · Answer 2 · 2015-02-19T06:58:39.750

20

In your home directory, create the .vim/ftdetect/xyz.vim:

au BufRead,BufNewFile *.xyz set filetype=c    " to overrule an existing filetype
au BufRead,BufNewFile *.xyz setfiletype c     " to set it only if no filetype has been detected for this extension

edited Feb 19 '15 at 06:58

answered Mar 25 '11 at 20:10

zarkdav

679
5
11

1

I think this is the most elegant way to do it, instead of overloading your `~/.vimrc` file – Sudar Jan 13 '13 at 07:51
1

My vim version (version 7.3.429) does not like the comment part. Removing the comment including the ';' works great. Thanks – georg Oct 24 '14 at 08:13
Updated to use vi comment char instead ;) – zarkdav Feb 19 '15 at 06:59

score 19 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 25 '11 at 20:13

19

With autocommand. E.g.

au BufNewFile,BufRead *.xyz setf c

answered Mar 25 '11 at 20:13

Lars Noschinski

3,667
16
29

1

in case you get `E319: Sorry`, you may not have `vim` installed (even if it looks like you does) – n611x007 Nov 23 '12 at 16:55

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 25 '11 at 20:18

3

You can set it in the vim config file:

http://beerpla.net/2008/04/02/how-to-add-a-vim-file-extension-to-syntax-highlighting/

answered Mar 25 '11 at 20:18

Robert Martin

73
1
6

http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/8231/are-answers-that-just-contain-links-elsewhere-really-good-answers – Marco Apr 07 '15 at 09:30

Enable syntax highlighting for various filetypes in vim

4 Answers4

Linked

Related