Enable syntax highlighting for various filetypes in vim

vim

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?

Best Answer

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

autocmd BufRead,BufNewFile *.xmlx set filetype=xml

Related Solutions

Using Vim’s tabs like buffers

Stop, stop, stop.

This is not how Vim's tabs are designed to be used. In fact, they're misnamed. A better name would be "viewport" or "layout", because that's what a tab is—it's a different layout of windows of all of your existing buffers.

Trying to beat Vim into 1 tab == 1 buffer is an exercise in futility. Vim doesn't know or care and it will not respect it on all commands—in particular, anything that uses the quickfix buffer (:make, :grep, and :helpgrep are the ones that spring to mind) will happily ignore tabs and there's nothing you can do to stop that.

Instead:

:set hidden
If you don't have this set already, then do so. It makes vim work like every other multiple-file editor on the planet. You can have edited buffers that aren't visible in a window somewhere.
Use :bn, :bp, :b #, :b name, and ctrl-6 to switch between buffers. I like ctrl-6 myself (alone it switches to the previously used buffer, or #ctrl-6 switches to buffer number #).
Use :ls to list buffers, or a plugin like MiniBufExpl or BufExplorer.

Vim 80 column layout concerns

As of vim 7.3, you can use set colorcolumn=80 (set cc=80 for short).

Since earlier versions do not support this, my .vimrc uses instead:

if exists('+colorcolumn')
  set colorcolumn=80
else
  au BufWinEnter * let w:m2=matchadd('ErrorMsg', '\%>80v.\+', -1)
endif

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Using Vim’s tabs like buffers

Vim 80 column layout concerns

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