 Tip #811: Highlight whitespace errors in files
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| created: |
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October 28, 2004 9:42 |
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complexity: |
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basic |
| author: |
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Frank B |
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as of Vim: |
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5.7 |
Being somewhat of a neat-freak, I dislike redundant trailing spaces,
and redundant space chars embedded inside of leading spaces.
This auto-command will highlight both of these when added to your vimrc.
au Syntax * syn match Error /\s\+$/ | syn match Error /^\s* \t\s*/
You'll be surprised how much whitespace crud there is in source files everywhere.
-Frank.
<< Highlighting Text Beyond 80 Columns |
Keep modified [+] flag after writing to a file >>
Additional Notes
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Anonymous,
October 28, 2004 12:07
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you can also use the listchars option and set the trail character
this will use the SpecialKey syntax highlighting for trailing charaters.
:help listchars
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Dubhead,
October 28, 2004 19:22
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I also hate redundant spaces, and had been highlighting them with a combination of 'highlight' and 'match' command.
But now I have switched to your 'au Syntax' approach. This is simpler and better. Thanks for the tip!
Here's a possible improvement that highlights only the redundant part:
au Syntax * syn match Error /\s\+$\| \+\ze\t/
'\ze' sets end of match. See :he /ordinary-atom
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Anonymous,
November 3, 2004 21:01
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| I'm new to vim, using 6.3.16 and adding the above to my .vimrc doesn't seem to work for me. Ideas?
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Anonymous,
November 4, 2004 8:56
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The command "syntax on" should appear before the autocommand line.
If it is issued after, highlighting will not occur.
For gvim users, if there are any syntax commands inside of $VIM/gvimrc,
try inserting the autocommand line inside of the user gvimrc file instead,
as it is after the system gvimrc file.
-Frank.
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mosh at albany,
November 20, 2004 18:54
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Here is how see the tabs in Makefiles
:au FileType make set tabstop=8 noexpandtab list
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[email protected],
November 24, 2004 12:16
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:au Syntax * syn match Error /\s\+$/ | syn match Error /\(^\s*\)\@<= \+\ze\t\+/
This will highlight just the spaces.
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