Vim: Get content of syntax element under cursor

Question

I'm on a highlighted complex syntax element and would like to get it's content. Can you think of any way to do this?

Maybe there's some way to search for a regular expression so that it contains the cursor?

EDIT

Okay, example. The cursor is inside a string, and I want to get the text, the content of this syntactic element. Consider the following line:

String myString = "Foobar, [CURSOR]cool \"string\""; // And some other "rubbish"

I want to write a function that returns

"Foobar, cool \"string\""

To simply find the syntax group at a position see: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1467438/find-out-to-which-highlight-group-a-particular-keyword-symbol-belongs-in-vim — Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com, Jun 04 '14 at 19:01

score 10 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 28 '11 at 22:55

10

if I understood the question. I found this gem some time ago and don't remember where but i used to understand how syntax hilighting works in vim:

" Show syntax highlighting groups for word under cursor
nmap <leader>z :call <SID>SynStack()<CR>
function! <SID>SynStack()
  if !exists("*synstack")
    return
  endif
  echo map(synstack(line('.'), col('.')), 'synIDattr(v:val, "name")')
endfunc

answered Apr 28 '11 at 22:55

eolo999

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This is a good start, but it only gives me the names of the syntax groups. I need the content. – blinry Apr 29 '11 at 17:13
1

Can you please explain how can this be used ? I don't know much about vim `syntax` highlighting - but it seems like a gem but I don't its significance. :( – Yugal Jindle Dec 15 '13 at 17:19
1

Wonderfull !! `:echo map(synstack(line('.'), col('.')), 'synIDattr(v:val, "name")')` – Tinmarino Jun 01 '19 at 20:17

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered May 02 '11 at 08:43

The textobj-syntax plugin might help. It creates a custom text object, so that you can run viy to visually select the current syntax highlighted element. The plugin depends on the textobj-user plugin, which is a framework for creating custom text objects.

benizi · Answer 3 · 2012-02-08T18:05:05.560

1

This is a good use for text objects (:help text-objects). To get the content you're looking for (Foobar, cool \"string\"), you can just do:

yi"

y = yank
i" = the text object "inner quoted string"

The yank command by default uses the unnamed register ("", see :help registers), so you can access the yanked contents programmatically using the getreg() function or the shorthand @{register-name}:

:echo 'String last yanked was:' getreg('"')
:echo 'String last yanked was:' @"

Or you can yank the contents into a different register:

"qyi"

yanks the inner quoted string into the "q register, so it doesn't conflict with standard register usage (and can be accessed as the @q variable).

edited Feb 08 '12 at 18:05

answered Nov 19 '11 at 18:30

benizi

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Thanks, but that's not general enough. I didn't know that i" ignores escaped quotes, nice! – blinry Feb 08 '12 at 12:30
Because of the flexibility in how Vim syntax authors can specify language elements, you might have a hard time finding something that works as a general "inner syntactic element". – benizi Feb 08 '12 at 18:04

blinry · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-03T07:15:31.503

0

EDIT: Seeing that the plugin mentioned by nelstrom works similar to my original approach, I settled on this slightly more elegant solution:

fu s:OnLink()
    let stack = synstack(line("."), col("."))
    return !empty(stack)
endf

normal mc 

normal $
let lineLength = col(".")
normal `c

while col(".") > 1
    normal h
    if !s:OnLink()
        normal l
        break
    endif
endwhile
normal ma`c

while col(".") < lineLength
    normal l
    if !s:OnLink()
        normal h
        break
    endif
endwhile
normal mb`av`by

edited May 03 '11 at 07:15

answered Apr 28 '11 at 15:14

blinry

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So your function scans to the left and right of the cursor position, and will stop when the syntax stack is empty. This way, you will however only capture a syntax element that is on one line, and you will have problems with neighbouring elements. – Zane Oct 28 '18 at 00:25

Vim: Get content of syntax element under cursor

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