Options

Nvim :help pages, generated from source using the tree-sitter-vimdoc parser.

Options
For an overview of options see quickref.txt option-list.
Vim has a number of internal variables and switches which can be set to achieve special effects. These options come in three forms: boolean can only be on or off boolean toggle number has a numeric value string has a string value

1. Setting options set-option E764

:se :set :se[t][!] Show all options that differ from their default value. When [!] is present every option is on a separate line.
:se[t][!] all Show all options. When [!] is present every option is on a separate line.
E518 E519 :se[t] {option} Show value of {option}. NOTE: some legacy options were removed. nvim-removed
:se[t] {option} Toggle option: set, switch it on. Number option: show value. String option: show value.
:se[t] no{option} Toggle option: Reset, switch it off.
:set-! :set-inv :se[t] {option}! or :se[t] inv{option} Toggle option: Invert value.
:set-default :set-& :set-&vi :set-&vim :se[t] {option}& Reset option to its default value. :se[t] {option}&vi Reset option to its Vi default value. :se[t] {option}&vim Reset option to its Vim default value.
:se[t] all& Set all options to their default value. The values of these options are not changed: 'columns' 'lines' Warning: This may have a lot of side effects.
:set-args :set= E487 E521 :se[t] {option}={value} or :se[t] {option}:{value} Set string or number option to {value}. For numeric options the value can be given in decimal, hex (preceded with 0x) or octal (preceded with '0' or '0o'). The old value can be inserted by typing 'wildchar' (by default this is a <Tab>). Many string options with fixed syntax also support completing known values. See cmdline-completion and complete-set-option. White space between {option} and '=' is allowed and will be ignored. White space between '=' and {value} is not allowed. See option-backslash for using white space and backslashes in {value}.
:se[t] {option}+={value} :set+=
Add the {value} to a number option, or append the {value} to a string option. When the option is a comma-separated list, a comma is added, unless the value was empty. If the option is a list of flags, superfluous flags are removed. When adding a flag that was already present the option value doesn't change. Also see :set-args above.
:se[t] {option}^={value} :set^=
Multiply the {value} to a number option, or prepend the {value} to a string option. When the option is a comma-separated list, a comma is added, unless the value was empty. Also see :set-args above.
:se[t] {option}-={value} :set-=
Subtract the {value} from a number option, or remove the {value} from a string option, if it is there. If the {value} is not found in a string option, there is no error or warning. When the option is a comma- separated list, a comma is deleted, unless the option becomes empty. When the option is a list of flags, {value} must be exactly as they appear in the option. Remove flags one by one to avoid problems. The individual values from a comma separated list or list of flags can be inserted by typing 'wildchar'. See complete-set-option. Also see :set-args above.
The {option} arguments to ":set" may be repeated. For example:
:set ai nosi sw=3 ts=3
If you make an error in one of the arguments, an error message will be given and the following arguments will be ignored.
:set-verbose
When 'verbose' is non-zero, displaying an option value will also tell where it was last set. Example:
:verbose set shiftwidth cindent?
shiftwidth=4
Last set from modeline line 1
cindent
Last set from /usr/local/share/vim/vim60/ftplugin/c.vim line 30
This is only done when specific option values are requested, not for ":verbose set all" or ":verbose set" without an argument. When the option was set by hand there is no "Last set" message. When the option was set while executing a function, user command or autocommand, the script in which it was defined is reported. A few special texts:
Last set from modeline line 1
Option was set in a modeline.
Last set from --cmd argument
Option was set with command line argument --cmd or +.
Last set from -c argument
Option was set with command line argument -c, +, -S or -q.
Last set from environment variable
Option was set from $VIMINIT.
Last set from error handler
Option was cleared when evaluating it resulted in an error.
option-backslash
To include white space in a string option value it has to be preceded with a backslash. To include a backslash you have to use two. Effectively this means that the number of backslashes in an option value is halved (rounded down). In options 'path', 'cdpath', and 'tags', spaces have to be preceded with three backslashes instead because they can be separated by either commas or spaces. Comma-separated options like 'backupdir' and 'tags' will also require commas to be escaped with two backslashes, whereas this is not needed for non-comma-separated ones like 'makeprg'. When setting options using :let and literal-string, you need to use one fewer layer of backslash. A few examples:
:set makeprg=make\ file            results in "make file"
:let &makeprg='make file'            (same as above)
:set makeprg=make\\\ file            results in "make\ file"
:set tags=tags\ /usr/tags            results in "tags" and "/usr/tags"
:set tags=tags\\\ file            results in "tags file"
:let &tags='tags\ file'            (same as above)
:set makeprg=make,file            results in "make,file"
:set makeprg=make\\,file            results in "make\,file"
:set tags=tags,file                    results in "tags" and "file"
:set tags=tags\\,file            results in "tags,file"
:let &tags='tags\,file'            (same as above)
The "|" character separates a ":set" command from a following command. To include the "|" in the option value, use "\|" instead. This example sets the 'titlestring' option to "hi|there":
:set titlestring=hi\|there
This sets the 'titlestring' option to "hi" and 'iconstring' to "there":
:set titlestring=hi|set iconstring=there
Similarly, the double quote character starts a comment. To include the '"' in the option value, use '\"' instead. This example sets the 'titlestring' option to "hi "there"":
:set titlestring=hi\ \"there\"
For Win32 backslashes in file names are mostly not removed. More precise: For options that expect a file name (those where environment variables are expanded) a backslash before a normal file name character is not removed. But a backslash before a special character (space, backslash, comma, etc.) is used like explained above. There is one special situation, when the value starts with "\\":
:set dir=\\machine\path            results in "\\machine\path"
:set dir=\\\\machine\\path            results in "\\machine\path"
:set dir=\\path\\file            results in "\\path\file" (wrong!)
For the first one the start is kept, but for the second one the backslashes are halved. This makes sure it works both when you expect backslashes to be halved and when you expect the backslashes to be kept. The third gives a result which is probably not what you want. Avoid it.
add-option-flags remove-option-flags E539
Some options are a list of flags. When you want to add a flag to such an option, without changing the existing ones, you can do it like this:
:set guioptions+=a
Remove a flag from an option like this:
:set guioptions-=a
This removes the 'a' flag from 'guioptions'. Note that you should add or remove one flag at a time. If 'guioptions' has the value "ab", using "set guioptions-=ba" won't work, because the string "ba" doesn't appear.
:set_env expand-env expand-environment-var Environment variables in specific string options will be expanded. If the environment variable exists the '$' and the following environment variable name is replaced with its value. If it does not exist the '$' and the name are not modified. Any non-id character (not a letter, digit or '_') may follow the environment variable name. That character and what follows is appended to the value of the environment variable. Examples:
:set term=$TERM.new
:set path=/usr/$INCLUDE,$HOME/include,.
When adding or removing a string from an option with ":set opt-=val" or ":set opt+=val" the expansion is done before the adding or removing.
Handling of local options local-options
Note: The following also applies to global-local options.
Some of the options only apply to a window or buffer. Each window or buffer has its own copy of this option, thus each can have its own value. This allows you to set 'list' in one window but not in another. And set 'shiftwidth' to 3 in one buffer and 4 in another.
The following explains what happens to these local options in specific situations. You don't really need to know all of this, since Vim mostly uses the option values you would expect. Unfortunately, doing what the user expects is a bit complicated...
When splitting a window, the local options are copied to the new window. Thus right after the split the contents of the two windows look the same.
When editing a new buffer, its local option values must be initialized. Since the local options of the current buffer might be specifically for that buffer, these are not used. Instead, for each buffer-local option there also is a global value, which is used for new buffers. With ":set" both the local and global value is changed. With "setlocal" only the local value is changed, thus this value is not used when editing a new buffer.
When editing a buffer that has been edited before, the options from the window that was last closed are used again. If this buffer has been edited in this window, the values from back then are used. Otherwise the values from the last closed window where the buffer was edited last are used.
It's possible to set a local window option specifically for a type of buffer. When you edit another buffer in the same window, you don't want to keep using these local window options. Therefore Vim keeps a global value of the local window options, which is used when editing another buffer. Each window has its own copy of these values. Thus these are local to the window, but global to all buffers in the window. With this you can do:
:e one
:set list
:e two
Now the 'list' option will also be set in "two", since with the ":set list" command you have also set the global value.
:set nolist
:e one
:setlocal list
:e two
Now the 'list' option is not set, because ":set nolist" resets the global value, ":setlocal list" only changes the local value and ":e two" gets the global value. Note that if you do this next:
:e one
You will get back the 'list' value as it was the last time you edited "one". The options local to a window are remembered for each buffer. This also happens when the buffer is not loaded, but they are lost when the buffer is wiped out :bwipe.
Special local window options local-noglobal
The following local window options won't be copied over when new windows are created, thus they behave slightly differently:
Option Reason
'previewwindow' there can only be a single one 'scroll' specific to existing window 'winfixbuf' specific to existing window 'winfixheight' specific to existing window 'winfixwidth' specific to existing window
Special local buffer options
The following local buffer options won't be copied over when new buffers are created, thus they behave slightly differently:
Option Reason
'filetype' explicitly set by autocommands 'syntax' explicitly set by autocommands 'bufhidden' denote special-buffers 'buftype' denote special-buffers 'readonly' will be detected automatically 'modified' will be detected automatically
:setl :setlocal :setl[ocal][!] ... Like ":set" but set only the value local to the current buffer or window. Not all options have a local value. If the option does not have a local value the global value is set. With the "all" argument: display local values for all local options. Without argument: Display local values for all local options which are different from the default. When displaying a specific local option, show the local value. For a global/local boolean option, when the global value is being used, "--" is displayed before the option name. For a global option the global value is shown (but that might change in the future).
:se[t] {option}< Set the effective value of {option} to its global value. For string global-local options, the local value is removed, so that the global value will be used. For all other options, the global value is copied to the local value.
:setl[ocal] {option}< Set the effective value of {option} to its global value. For number and boolean global-local options, the local value is removed, so that the global value will be used. For all other options, including string global-local options, the global value is copied to the local value.
Note that the behaviour for global-local options is slightly different between string and number-based options.
:setg :setglobal :setg[lobal][!] ... Like ":set" but set only the global value for a local option without changing the local value. When displaying an option, the global value is shown. With the "all" argument: display global values for all local options. Without argument: display global values for all local options which are different from the default.
For buffer-local and window-local options:
Command global value local value condition
:set option=value set set :setlocal option=value - set :setglobal option=value set - :set option? - display local value is set :set option? display - local value is not set :setlocal option? - display :setglobal option? display -
Global options with a local value global-local
Options are global when you mostly use one value for all buffers and windows. For some global options it's useful to sometimes have a different local value. You can set the local value with ":setlocal". That buffer or window will then use the local value, while other buffers and windows continue using the global value.
For example, you have two windows, both on C source code. They use the global 'makeprg' option. If you do this in one of the two windows:
:set makeprg=gmake
then the other window will switch to the same value. There is no need to set the 'makeprg' option in the other C source window too. However, if you start editing a Perl file in a new window, you want to use another 'makeprg' for it, without changing the value used for the C source files. You use this command:
:setlocal makeprg=perlmake
You can switch back to using the global value by making the local value empty:
:setlocal makeprg=
This only works for a string option. For a number or boolean option you need to use the "<" flag, like this:
:setlocal autoread<
Note that for non-boolean and non-number options using "<" copies the global value to the local value, it doesn't switch back to using the global value (that matters when the global value changes later). You can also use:
:set path<
This will make the local value of 'path' empty, so that the global value is used. Thus it does the same as:
:setlocal path=
Note: In the future more global options can be made global-local. Using ":setlocal" on a global option might work differently then.
option-value-function
Some options ('completefunc', 'omnifunc', 'operatorfunc', 'quickfixtextfunc', 'tagfunc' and 'thesaurusfunc') are set to a function name or a function reference or a lambda function. When using a lambda it will be converted to the name, e.g. "<lambda>123". Examples: 
set opfunc=MyOpFunc
set opfunc=function('MyOpFunc')
set opfunc=funcref('MyOpFunc')
set opfunc={a\ ->\ MyOpFunc(a)}
Set to a script-local function:
set opfunc=s:MyLocalFunc
set opfunc=<SID>MyLocalFunc
Set using a funcref variable:
let Fn = function('MyTagFunc')
let &tagfunc = Fn
Set using a lambda expression:
let &tagfunc = {t -> MyTagFunc(t)}
Set using a variable with lambda expression:
let L = {a, b, c -> MyTagFunc(a, b , c)}
let &tagfunc = L
Calling a function in an expr option expr-option-function
The value of a few options, such as 'foldexpr', is an expression that is evaluated to get a value. The evaluation can have quite a bit of overhead. One way to minimize the overhead, and also to keep the option value very simple, is to define a function and set the option to call it without arguments. A v:lua-call can also be used. Example:
lua << EOF
  function _G.MyFoldFunc()
    -- ... compute fold level for line v:lnum
    return level
  end
EOF
set foldexpr=v:lua.MyFoldFunc()
Setting the filetype
:setf[iletype] [FALLBACK] {filetype} :setf :setfiletype Set the 'filetype' option to {filetype}, but only if not done yet in a sequence of (nested) autocommands. This is short for:
:if !did_filetype()
:  setlocal filetype={filetype}
:endif
This command is used in a filetype.vim file to avoid setting the 'filetype' option twice, causing different settings and syntax files to be loaded.
When the optional FALLBACK argument is present, a later :setfiletype command will override the 'filetype'. This is to be used for filetype detections that are just a guess. did_filetype() will return false after this command.
option-window optwin :bro[wse] se[t] :set-browse :browse-set :opt :options :opt[ions] Open a window for viewing and setting all options. Options are grouped by function. Offers short help for each option. Hit <CR> on the short help to open a help window with more help for the option. Modify the value of the option and hit <CR> on the "set" line to set the new value. For window and buffer specific options, the last accessed window is used to set the option value in, unless this is a help window, in which case the window below help window is used (skipping the option-window).
$HOME
Using "~" is like using "$HOME", but it is only recognized at the start of an option and after a space or comma.
On Unix systems "~user" can be used too. It is replaced by the home directory of user "user". Example:
:set path=~mool/include,/usr/include,.
On Unix systems the form "${HOME}" can be used too. The name between {} can contain non-id characters then. Note that if you want to use this for the "gf" command, you need to add the '{' and '}' characters to 'isfname'.
NOTE: expanding environment variables and "~/" is only done with the ":set" command, not when assigning a value to an option with ":let".
$HOME-windows
On MS-Windows, if $HOME is not defined as an environment variable, then at runtime Vim will set it to the expansion of $HOMEDRIVE$HOMEPATH. If $HOMEDRIVE is not set then $USERPROFILE is used.
This expanded value is not exported to the environment, this matters when running an external command:
:echo system('set | findstr ^HOME=')
and
:echo luaeval('os.getenv("HOME")')
should echo nothing (an empty string) despite exists('$HOME') being true. When setting $HOME to a non-empty string it will be exported to the subprocesses.
Note the maximum length of an expanded option is limited. How much depends on the system, mostly it is something like 256 or 1024 characters.

2. Automatically setting options auto-setting

Besides changing options with the ":set" command, you can set options automatically in various ways:
1. With a config file or a startup argument. You can create an initialization file with :mkvimrc, :mkview and :mksession. 2. autocommands executed when you edit a file. 3. ".nvim.lua" files in the current directory, if 'exrc' is enabled. 4. editorconfig in the current buffer's directory or ancestors. 5. 'modeline' settings found at the beginning or end of the file. See below.
modeline vim: vi: ex: E520 There are two forms of modelines. The first form: [text{white}]{vi:|vim:|ex:}[white]{options}
[text{white}] empty or any text followed by at least one blank character (<Space> or <Tab>); "ex:" always requires at least one blank character {vi:|vim:|ex:} the string "vi:", "vim:" or "ex:" [white] optional white space {options} a list of option settings, separated with white space or ':', where each part between ':' is the argument for a ":set" command (can be empty)
Examples:
vi:noai:sw=3 ts=6
vim: tw=77
The second form (this is compatible with some versions of Vi):
[text{white}]{vi:|vim:|Vim:|ex:}[white]se[t] {options}:[text]
[text{white}] empty or any text followed by at least one blank character (<Space> or <Tab>); "ex:" always requires at least one blank character {vi:|vim:|Vim:|ex:} the string "vi:", "vim:", "Vim:" or "ex:" [white] optional white space se[t] the string "set " or "se " (note the space); When "Vim" is used it must be "set". {options} a list of options, separated with white space, which is the argument for a ":set" command : a colon [text] any text or empty
Examples:
/* vim: set ai tw=75: */
/* Vim: set ai tw=75: */
The white space before {vi:|vim:|Vim:|ex:} is required. This minimizes the chance that a normal word like "lex:" is caught. There is one exception: "vi:" and "vim:" can also be at the start of the line (for compatibility with version 3.0). Using "ex:" at the start of the line will be ignored (this could be short for "example:").
If the modeline is disabled within a modeline, subsequent modelines will be ignored. This is to allow turning off modeline on a per-file basis. This is useful when a line looks like a modeline but isn't. For example, it would be good to start a YAML file containing strings like "vim:" with
# vim: nomodeline
so as to avoid modeline misdetection. Following options on the same line after modeline deactivation, if any, are still evaluated (but you would normally not have any).
modeline-local
The options are set like with ":setlocal": The new value only applies to the buffer and window that contain the file. Although it's possible to set global options from a modeline, this is unusual. If you have two windows open and the files in it set the same global option to a different value, the result depends on which one was opened last.
When editing a file that was already loaded, only the window-local options from the modeline are used. Thus if you manually changed a buffer-local option after opening the file, it won't be changed if you edit the same buffer in another window. But window-local options will be set.
modeline-version
If the modeline is only to be used for some versions of Vim, the version number can be specified where "vim:" or "Vim:" is used: vim{vers}: version {vers} or later vim<{vers}: version before {vers} vim={vers}: version {vers} vim>{vers}: version after {vers} {vers} is 700 for Vim 7.0 (hundred times the major version plus minor). For example, to use a modeline only for Vim 7.0:
/* vim700: set foldmethod=marker */
To use a modeline for Vim after version 7.2:
/* vim>702: set cole=2: */
There can be no blanks between "vim" and the ":". The modeline is ignored if {vers} does not fit in an integer.
The number of lines that are checked can be set with the 'modelines' option. If 'modeline' is off or 'modelines' is 0 no lines are checked.
Note that for the first form all of the rest of the line is used, thus a line like:
/* vi:ts=4: */
will give an error message for the trailing "*/". This line is OK:
/* vi:set ts=4: */
If an error is detected the rest of the line is skipped.
If you want to include a ':' in a set command precede it with a '\'. The backslash in front of the ':' will be removed. Example:
/* vi:set fillchars=stl\:^,vert\:\|: */
This sets the 'fillchars' option to "stl:^,vert:\|". Only a single backslash before the ':' is removed. Thus to include "\:" you have to specify "\\:". E992
No other commands than "set" are supported, for security reasons (somebody might create a Trojan horse text file with modelines). And not all options can be set. For some options a flag is set, so that when the value is used the sandbox is effective. Some options can only be set from the modeline when 'modelineexpr' is set (the default is off).
Still, there is always a small risk that a modeline causes trouble. E.g., when some joker sets 'textwidth' to 5 all your lines are wrapped unexpectedly. So disable modelines before editing untrusted text. The mail ftplugin does this, for example.
Hint: If you would like to do something else than setting an option, you could define an autocommand that checks the file for a specific string. For example:
au BufReadPost * if getline(1) =~ "VAR" | call SetVar() | endif
And define a function SetVar() that does something with the line containing "VAR".

3. Options summary option-summary

In the list below all the options are mentioned with their full name and with an abbreviation if there is one. Both forms may be used.
In this document when a boolean option is "set" that means that ":set option" is entered. When an option is "reset", ":set nooption" is used.
Most options are the same in all windows and buffers. There are a few that are specific to how the text is presented in a window. These can be set to a different value in each window. For example the 'list' option can be set in one window and reset in another for the same text, giving both types of view at the same time. There are a few options that are specific to a certain file. These can have a different value for each file or buffer. For example the 'textwidth' option can be 78 for a normal text file and 0 for a C program.
global one option for all buffers and windows local to window each window has its own copy of this option local to buffer each buffer has its own copy of this option
When creating a new window the option values from the currently active window are used as a default value for the window-specific options. For the buffer-specific options this depends on the 's' and 'S' flags in the 'cpoptions' option. If 's' is included (which is the default) the values for buffer options are copied from the currently active buffer when a buffer is first entered. If 'S' is present the options are copied each time the buffer is entered, this is almost like having global options. If 's' and 'S' are not present, the options are copied from the currently active buffer when the buffer is created.
Hidden options hidden-options
Not all options are supported in all versions. This depends on the supported features and sometimes on the system. A remark about this is in curly braces below. When an option is not supported it may still be set without getting an error, this is called a hidden option. You can't get the value of a hidden option though, it is not stored.
To test if option "foo" can be used with ":set" use something like this:
if exists('&foo')
This also returns true for a hidden option. To test if option "foo" is really supported use something like this:
if exists('+foo')
E355
A jump table for the options with a short description can be found at Q_op.
'allowrevins' 'ari' 'noallowrevins' 'noari' 'allowrevins' 'ari' boolean (default off) global Allow CTRL-_ in Insert mode. This is default off, to avoid that users that accidentally type CTRL-_ instead of SHIFT-_ get into reverse Insert mode, and don't know how to get out. See 'revins'.
'ambiwidth' 'ambw' 'ambiwidth' 'ambw' string (default "single") global Tells Vim what to do with characters with East Asian Width Class Ambiguous (such as Euro, Registered Sign, Copyright Sign, Greek letters, Cyrillic letters).
There are currently two possible values: "single": Use the same width as characters in US-ASCII. This is expected by most users. "double": Use twice the width of ASCII characters. E834 E835 The value "double" cannot be used if 'listchars' or 'fillchars' contains a character that would be double width. These errors may also be given when calling setcellwidths().
The values are overruled for characters specified with setcellwidths().
There are a number of CJK fonts for which the width of glyphs for those characters are solely based on how many octets they take in legacy/traditional CJK encodings. In those encodings, Euro, Registered sign, Greek/Cyrillic letters are represented by two octets, therefore those fonts have "wide" glyphs for them. This is also true of some line drawing characters used to make tables in text file. Therefore, when a CJK font is used for GUI Vim or Vim is running inside a terminal (emulators) that uses a CJK font (or Vim is run inside an xterm invoked with "-cjkwidth" option.), this option should be set to "double" to match the width perceived by Vim with the width of glyphs in the font. Perhaps it also has to be set to "double" under CJK MS-Windows when the system locale is set to one of CJK locales. See Unicode Standard Annex #11 (https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr11).
'arabic' 'arab' 'noarabic' 'noarab' 'arabic' 'arab' boolean (default off) local to window This option can be set to start editing Arabic text. Setting this option will:
Set the 'rightleft' option, unless 'termbidi' is set.
Set the 'arabicshape' option, unless 'termbidi' is set.
Set the 'keymap' option to "arabic"; in Insert mode CTRL-^ toggles between typing English and Arabic key mapping.
Set the 'delcombine' option
Resetting this option will:
Reset the 'rightleft' option.
Disable the use of 'keymap' (without changing its value). Note that 'arabicshape' and 'delcombine' are not reset (it is a global option). Also see arabic.txt.
'arabicshape' 'arshape' 'noarabicshape' 'noarshape' 'arabicshape' 'arshape' boolean (default on) global When on and 'termbidi' is off, the required visual character corrections that need to take place for displaying the Arabic language take effect. Shaping, in essence, gets enabled; the term is a broad one which encompasses: a) the changing/morphing of characters based on their location within a word (initial, medial, final and stand-alone). b) the enabling of the ability to compose characters c) the enabling of the required combining of some characters When disabled the display shows each character's true stand-alone form. Arabic is a complex language which requires other settings, for further details see arabic.txt.
'autochdir' 'acd' 'noautochdir' 'noacd' 'autochdir' 'acd' boolean (default off) global When on, Vim will change the current working directory whenever you open a file, switch buffers, delete a buffer or open/close a window. It will change to the directory containing the file which was opened or selected. When a buffer has no name it also has no directory, thus the current directory won't change when navigating to it. Note: When this option is on some plugins may not work.
'autoindent' 'ai' 'noautoindent' 'noai' 'autoindent' 'ai' boolean (default on) local to buffer Copy indent from current line when starting a new line (typing <CR> in Insert mode or when using the "o" or "O" command). If you do not type anything on the new line except <BS> or CTRL-D and then type <Esc>, CTRL-O or <CR>, the indent is deleted again. Moving the cursor to another line has the same effect, unless the 'I' flag is included in 'cpoptions'. When autoindent is on, formatting (with the "gq" command or when you reach 'textwidth' in Insert mode) uses the indentation of the first line. When 'smartindent' or 'cindent' is on the indent is changed in a different way.
'autoread' 'ar' 'noautoread' 'noar' 'autoread' 'ar' boolean (default on) global or local to buffer global-local When a file has been detected to have been changed outside of Vim and it has not been changed inside of Vim, automatically read it again. When the file has been deleted this is not done, so you have the text from before it was deleted. When it appears again then it is read. timestamp If this option has a local value, use this command to switch back to using the global value:
set autoread<
'autowrite' 'aw' 'noautowrite' 'noaw' 'autowrite' 'aw' boolean (default off) global Write the contents of the file, if it has been modified, on each :next, :rewind, :last, :first, :previous, :stop, :suspend, :tag, :!, :make, CTRL-] and CTRL-^ command; and when a :buffer, CTRL-O, CTRL-I, '{A-Z0-9}, or{A-Z0-9} command takes one to another file. A buffer is not written if it becomes hidden, e.g. when 'bufhidden' is set to "hide" and :next is used. Note that for some commands the 'autowrite' option is not used, see 'autowriteall' for that. Some buffers will not be written, specifically when 'buftype' is "nowrite", "nofile", "terminal" or "prompt". USE WITH CARE: If you make temporary changes to a buffer that you don't want to be saved this option may cause it to be saved anyway. Renaming the buffer with ":file {name}" may help avoid this.
'autowriteall' 'awa' 'noautowriteall' 'noawa' 'autowriteall' 'awa' boolean (default off) global Like 'autowrite', but also used for commands ":edit", ":enew", ":quit", ":qall", ":exit", ":xit", ":recover" and closing the Vim window. Setting this option also implies that Vim behaves like 'autowrite' has been set.
'background' 'bg' 'background' 'bg' string (default "dark") global When set to "dark" or "light", adjusts the default color groups for that background type. The TUI or other UI sets this on startup (triggering OptionSet) if it can detect the background color.
This option does NOT change the background color, it tells Nvim what the "inherited" (terminal/GUI) background looks like. See :hi-normal if you want to set the background color explicitly. g:colors_name
When a color scheme is loaded (the "g:colors_name" variable is set) changing 'background' will cause the color scheme to be reloaded. If the color scheme adjusts to the value of 'background' this will work. However, if the color scheme sets 'background' itself the effect may be undone. First delete the "g:colors_name" variable when needed.
Normally this option would be set in the vimrc file. Possibly depending on the terminal name. Example:
if $TERM ==# "xterm"
  set background=dark
endif
When this option is changed, the default settings for the highlight groups will change. To use other settings, place ":highlight" commands AFTER the setting of the 'background' option.
'backspace' 'bs' 'backspace' 'bs' string (default "indent,eol,start") global Influences the working of <BS>, <Del>, CTRL-W and CTRL-U in Insert mode. This is a list of items, separated by commas. Each item allows a way to backspace over something:
value effect
indent allow backspacing over autoindent eol allow backspacing over line breaks (join lines) start allow backspacing over the start of insert; CTRL-W and CTRL-U stop once at the start of insert. nostop like start, except CTRL-W and CTRL-U do not stop at the start of insert.
When the value is empty, Vi compatible backspacing is used, none of the ways mentioned for the items above are possible.
'backup' 'bk' 'nobackup' 'nobk' 'backup' 'bk' boolean (default off) global Make a backup before overwriting a file. Leave it around after the file has been successfully written. If you do not want to keep the backup file, but you do want a backup while the file is being written, reset this option and set the 'writebackup' option (this is the default). If you do not want a backup file at all reset both options (use this if your file system is almost full). See the backup-table for more explanations. When the 'backupskip' pattern matches, a backup is not made anyway. When 'patchmode' is set, the backup may be renamed to become the oldest version of a file.
'backupcopy' 'bkc' 'backupcopy' 'bkc' string (default "auto") global or local to buffer global-local When writing a file and a backup is made, this option tells how it's done. This is a comma-separated list of words.
The main values are: "yes" make a copy of the file and overwrite the original one "no" rename the file and write a new one "auto" one of the previous, what works best
Extra values that can be combined with the ones above are: "breaksymlink" always break symlinks when writing "breakhardlink" always break hardlinks when writing
Making a copy and overwriting the original file:
Takes extra time to copy the file. + When the file has special attributes, is a (hard/symbolic) link or has a resource fork, all this is preserved.
When the file is a link the backup will have the name of the link, not of the real file.
Renaming the file and writing a new one: + It's fast.
Sometimes not all attributes of the file can be copied to the new file.
When the file is a link the new file will not be a link.
The "auto" value is the middle way: When Vim sees that renaming the file is possible without side effects (the attributes can be passed on and the file is not a link) that is used. When problems are expected, a copy will be made.
The "breaksymlink" and "breakhardlink" values can be used in combination with any of "yes", "no" and "auto". When included, they force Vim to always break either symbolic or hard links by doing exactly what the "no" option does, renaming the original file to become the backup and writing a new file in its place. This can be useful for example in source trees where all the files are symbolic or hard links and any changes should stay in the local source tree, not be propagated back to the original source. crontab
One situation where "no" and "auto" will cause problems: A program that opens a file, invokes Vim to edit that file, and then tests if the open file was changed (through the file descriptor) will check the backup file instead of the newly created file. "crontab -e" is an example.
When a copy is made, the original file is truncated and then filled with the new text. This means that protection bits, owner and symbolic links of the original file are unmodified. The backup file, however, is a new file, owned by the user who edited the file. The group of the backup is set to the group of the original file. If this fails, the protection bits for the group are made the same as for others.
When the file is renamed, this is the other way around: The backup has the same attributes of the original file, and the newly written file is owned by the current user. When the file was a (hard/symbolic) link, the new file will not! That's why the "auto" value doesn't rename when the file is a link. The owner and group of the newly written file will be set to the same ones as the original file, but the system may refuse to do this. In that case the "auto" value will again not rename the file.
'backupdir' 'bdir' 'backupdir' 'bdir' string (default ".,$XDG_STATE_HOME/nvim/backup//") global List of directories for the backup file, separated with commas.
The backup file will be created in the first directory in the list where this is possible. If none of the directories exist Nvim will attempt to create the last directory in the list.
Empty means that no backup file will be created ('patchmode' is impossible!). Writing may fail because of this.
A directory "." means to put the backup file in the same directory as the edited file.
A directory starting with "./" (or ".\" for MS-Windows) means to put the backup file relative to where the edited file is. The leading "." is replaced with the path name of the edited file. ("." inside a directory name has no special meaning).
Spaces after the comma are ignored, other spaces are considered part of the directory name. To have a space at the start of a directory name, precede it with a backslash.
To include a comma in a directory name precede it with a backslash.
A directory name may end in an '/'.
For Unix and Win32, if a directory ends in two path separators "//", the swap file name will be built from the complete path to the file with all path separators changed to percent '%' signs. This will ensure file name uniqueness in the backup directory. On Win32, it is also possible to end with "\\". However, When a separating comma is following, you must use "//", since "\\" will include the comma in the file name. Therefore it is recommended to use '//', instead of '\\'.
Environment variables are expanded :set_env.
Careful with '\' characters, type one before a space, type two to get one in the option (see option-backslash), for example:
set bdir=c:\\tmp,\ dir\\,with\\,commas,\\\ dir\ with\ spaces
See also 'backup' and 'writebackup' options. If you want to hide your backup files on Unix, consider this value:
set backupdir=./.backup,~/.backup,.,/tmp
You must create a ".backup" directory in each directory and in your home directory for this to work properly. The use of :set+= and :set-= is preferred when adding or removing directories from the list. This avoids problems when a future version uses another default. This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'backupext' 'bex' E589 'backupext' 'bex' string (default "~") global String which is appended to a file name to make the name of the backup file. The default is quite unusual, because this avoids accidentally overwriting existing files with a backup file. You might prefer using ".bak", but make sure that you don't have files with ".bak" that you want to keep. Only normal file name characters can be used; /\*?[|<> are illegal.
If you like to keep a lot of backups, you could use a BufWritePre autocommand to change 'backupext' just before writing the file to include a timestamp.
au BufWritePre * let &bex = '-' .. strftime("%Y%b%d%X") .. '~'
Use 'backupdir' to put the backup in a different directory.
'backupskip' 'bsk' 'backupskip' 'bsk' string (default "$TMPDIR/*,$TMP/*,$TEMP/*" Unix: "/tmp/*,$TMPDIR/*,$TMP/*,$TEMP/*" Mac: "/private/tmp/*,$TMPDIR/*,$TMP/*,$TEMP/*") global A list of file patterns. When one of the patterns matches with the name of the file which is written, no backup file is created. Both the specified file name and the full path name of the file are used. The pattern is used like with :autocmd, see autocmd-pattern. Watch out for special characters, see option-backslash. When $TMPDIR, $TMP or $TEMP is not defined, it is not used for the default value. "/tmp/*" is only used for Unix.
WARNING: Not having a backup file means that when Vim fails to write your buffer correctly and then, for whatever reason, Vim exits, you lose both the original file and what you were writing. Only disable backups if you don't care about losing the file.
Note that environment variables are not expanded. If you want to use $HOME you must expand it explicitly, e.g.:
let &backupskip = escape(expand('$HOME'), '\') .. '/tmp/*'
Note that the default also makes sure that "crontab -e" works (when a backup would be made by renaming the original file crontab won't see the newly created file). Also see 'backupcopy' and crontab.
'belloff' 'bo' 'belloff' 'bo' string (default "all") global Specifies for which events the bell will not be rung. It is a comma- separated list of items. For each item that is present, the bell will be silenced. This is most useful to specify specific events in insert mode to be silenced.
item meaning when present
all All events. backspace When hitting <BS> or <Del> and deleting results in an error. cursor Fail to move around using the cursor keys or <PageUp>/<PageDown> in Insert-mode. complete Error occurred when using i_CTRL-X_CTRL-K or i_CTRL-X_CTRL-T. copy Cannot copy char from insert mode using i_CTRL-Y or i_CTRL-E. ctrlg Unknown Char after <C-G> in Insert mode. error Other Error occurred (e.g. try to join last line) (mostly used in Normal-mode or Cmdline-mode). esc hitting <Esc> in Normal-mode. hangul Ignored. lang Calling the beep module for Lua/Mzscheme/TCL. mess No output available for g<. showmatch Error occurred for 'showmatch' function. operator Empty region error cpo-E. register Unknown register after <C-R> in Insert-mode. shell Bell from shell output :!. spell Error happened on spell suggest. wildmode More matches in cmdline-completion available (depends on the 'wildmode' setting).
This is most useful to fine tune when in Insert mode the bell should be rung. For Normal mode and Ex commands, the bell is often rung to indicate that an error occurred. It can be silenced by adding the "error" keyword.
'binary' 'bin' 'nobinary' 'nobin' 'binary' 'bin' boolean (default off) local to buffer This option should be set before editing a binary file. You can also use the -b Vim argument. When this option is switched on a few options will be changed (also when it already was on): 'textwidth' will be set to 0 'wrapmargin' will be set to 0 'modeline' will be off 'expandtab' will be off Also, 'fileformat' and 'fileformats' options will not be used, the file is read and written like 'fileformat' was "unix" (a single <NL> separates lines). The 'fileencoding' and 'fileencodings' options will not be used, the file is read without conversion. NOTE: When you start editing a(nother) file while the 'bin' option is on, settings from autocommands may change the settings again (e.g., 'textwidth'), causing trouble when editing. You might want to set 'bin' again when the file has been loaded. The previous values of these options are remembered and restored when 'bin' is switched from on to off. Each buffer has its own set of saved option values. To edit a file with 'binary' set you can use the ++bin argument. This avoids you have to do ":set bin", which would have effect for all files you edit. When writing a file the <EOL> for the last line is only written if there was one in the original file (normally Vim appends an <EOL> to the last line if there is none; this would make the file longer). See the 'endofline' option.
'bomb' 'nobomb' 'bomb' boolean (default off) local to buffer When writing a file and the following conditions are met, a BOM (Byte Order Mark) is prepended to the file:
this option is on
the 'binary' option is off
'fileencoding' is "utf-8", "ucs-2", "ucs-4" or one of the little/big endian variants. Some applications use the BOM to recognize the encoding of the file. Often used for UCS-2 files on MS-Windows. For other applications it causes trouble, for example: "cat file1 file2" makes the BOM of file2 appear halfway through the resulting file. Gcc doesn't accept a BOM. When Vim reads a file and 'fileencodings' starts with "ucs-bom", a check for the presence of the BOM is done and 'bomb' set accordingly. Unless 'binary' is set, it is removed from the first line, so that you don't see it when editing. When you don't change the options, the BOM will be restored when writing the file.
'breakat' 'brk' 'breakat' 'brk' string (default " ^I!@*-+;:,./?") global This option lets you choose which characters might cause a line break if 'linebreak' is on. Only works for ASCII characters.
'breakindent' 'bri' 'nobreakindent' 'nobri' 'breakindent' 'bri' boolean (default off) local to window Every wrapped line will continue visually indented (same amount of space as the beginning of that line), thus preserving horizontal blocks of text.
'breakindentopt' 'briopt' 'breakindentopt' 'briopt' string (default "") local to window Settings for 'breakindent'. It can consist of the following optional items and must be separated by a comma: min:{n} Minimum text width that will be kept after applying 'breakindent', even if the resulting text should normally be narrower. This prevents text indented almost to the right window border occupying lots of vertical space when broken. (default: 20) shift:{n} After applying 'breakindent', the wrapped line's beginning will be shifted by the given number of characters. It permits dynamic French paragraph indentation (negative) or emphasizing the line continuation (positive). (default: 0) sbr Display the 'showbreak' value before applying the additional indent. (default: off) list:{n} Adds an additional indent for lines that match a numbered or bulleted list (using the 'formatlistpat' setting). (default: 0) list:-1 Uses the width of a match with 'formatlistpat' for indentation. column:{n} Indent at column {n}. Will overrule the other sub-options. Note: an additional indent may be added for the 'showbreak' setting. (default: off)
'browsedir' 'bsdir' 'browsedir' 'bsdir' string (default "last") global Which directory to use for the file browser: last Use same directory as with last file browser, where a file was opened or saved. buffer Use the directory of the related buffer. current Use the current directory. {path} Use the specified directory
'bufhidden' 'bh' 'bufhidden' 'bh' string (default "") local to buffer local-noglobal This option specifies what happens when a buffer is no longer displayed in a window: <empty> follow the global 'hidden' option hide hide the buffer (don't unload it), even if 'hidden' is not set unload unload the buffer, even if 'hidden' is set; the :hide command will also unload the buffer delete delete the buffer from the buffer list, even if 'hidden' is set; the :hide command will also delete the buffer, making it behave like :bdelete wipe wipe the buffer from the buffer list, even if 'hidden' is set; the :hide command will also wipe out the buffer, making it behave like :bwipeout
CAREFUL: when "unload", "delete" or "wipe" is used changes in a buffer are lost without a warning. Also, these values may break autocommands that switch between buffers temporarily. This option is used together with 'buftype' and 'swapfile' to specify special kinds of buffers. See special-buffers.
'buflisted' 'bl' 'nobuflisted' 'nobl' E85 'buflisted' 'bl' boolean (default on) local to buffer When this option is set, the buffer shows up in the buffer list. If it is reset it is not used for ":bnext", "ls", the Buffers menu, etc. This option is reset by Vim for buffers that are only used to remember a file name or marks. Vim sets it when starting to edit a buffer. But not when moving to a buffer with ":buffer".
'buftype' 'bt' E382 'buftype' 'bt' string (default "") local to buffer local-noglobal The value of this option specifies the type of a buffer: <empty> normal buffer acwrite buffer will always be written with BufWriteCmds help help buffer (do not set this manually) nofile buffer is not related to a file, will not be written nowrite buffer will not be written quickfix list of errors :cwindow or locations :lwindow terminal terminal-emulator buffer prompt buffer where only the last line can be edited, meant to be used by a plugin, see prompt-buffer
This option is used together with 'bufhidden' and 'swapfile' to specify special kinds of buffers. See special-buffers. Also see win_gettype(), which returns the type of the window.
Be careful with changing this option, it can have many side effects! One such effect is that Vim will not check the timestamp of the file, if the file is changed by another program this will not be noticed.
A "quickfix" buffer is only used for the error list and the location list. This value is set by the :cwindow and :lwindow commands and you are not supposed to change it.
"nofile" and "nowrite" buffers are similar: both: The buffer is not to be written to disk, ":w" doesn't work (":w filename" does work though). both: The buffer is never considered to be 'modified'. There is no warning when the changes will be lost, for example when you quit Vim. both: A swap file is only created when using too much memory (when 'swapfile' has been reset there is never a swap file). nofile only: The buffer name is fixed, it is not handled like a file name. It is not modified in response to a :cd command. both: When using ":e bufname" and already editing "bufname" the buffer is made empty and autocommands are triggered as usual for :edit. E676
"acwrite" implies that the buffer name is not related to a file, like "nofile", but it will be written. Thus, in contrast to "nofile" and "nowrite", ":w" does work and a modified buffer can't be abandoned without saving. For writing there must be matching BufWriteCmd, FileWriteCmd or FileAppendCmd autocommands.
'casemap' 'cmp' 'casemap' 'cmp' string (default "internal,keepascii") global Specifies details about changing the case of letters. It may contain these words, separated by a comma: internal Use internal case mapping functions, the current locale does not change the case mapping. When "internal" is omitted, the towupper() and towlower() system library functions are used when available. keepascii For the ASCII characters (0x00 to 0x7f) use the US case mapping, the current locale is not effective. This probably only matters for Turkish.
'cdhome' 'cdh' 'nocdhome' 'nocdh' 'cdhome' 'cdh' boolean (default off) global When on, :cd, :tcd and :lcd without an argument changes the current working directory to the $HOME directory like in Unix. When off, those commands just print the current directory name. On Unix this option has no effect. This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'cdpath' 'cd' E344 E346 'cdpath' 'cd' string (default equivalent to $CDPATH or ",,") global This is a list of directories which will be searched when using the :cd, :tcd and :lcd commands, provided that the directory being searched for has a relative path, not an absolute part starting with "/", "./" or "../", the 'cdpath' option is not used then. The 'cdpath' option's value has the same form and semantics as 'path'. Also see file-searching. The default value is taken from $CDPATH, with a "," prepended to look in the current directory first. If the default value taken from $CDPATH is not what you want, include a modified version of the following command in your vimrc file to override it:
let &cdpath = ',' .. substitute(substitute($CDPATH, '[, ]', '\\\0', 'g'), ':', ',', 'g')
This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons. (parts of 'cdpath' can be passed to the shell to expand file names).
'cedit'
'cedit' string (default CTRL-F) global The key used in Command-line Mode to open the command-line window. Only non-printable keys are allowed. The key can be specified as a single character, but it is difficult to type. The preferred way is to use key-notation (e.g. <Up>, <C-F>) or a letter preceded with a caret (e.g. ^F is CTRL-F). Examples:
set cedit=^Y
set cedit=<Esc>
Nvi also has this option, but it only uses the first character. See cmdwin.
'channel'
'channel' number (default 0) local to buffer channel connected to the buffer, or 0 if no channel is connected. In a :terminal buffer this is the terminal channel. Read-only.
'charconvert' 'ccv' E202 E214 E513 'charconvert' 'ccv' string (default "") global An expression that is used for character encoding conversion. It is evaluated when a file that is to be read or has been written has a different encoding from what is desired. 'charconvert' is not used when the internal iconv() function is supported and is able to do the conversion. Using iconv() is preferred, because it is much faster. 'charconvert' is not used when reading stdin --, because there is no file to convert from. You will have to save the text in a file first. The expression must return zero, false or an empty string for success, non-zero or true for failure. See encoding-names for possible encoding names. Additionally, names given in 'fileencodings' and 'fileencoding' are used. Conversion between "latin1", "unicode", "ucs-2", "ucs-4" and "utf-8" is done internally by Vim, 'charconvert' is not used for this. Also used for Unicode conversion. Example:
set charconvert=CharConvert()
fun CharConvert()
  system("recode "
        \ .. v:charconvert_from .. ".." .. v:charconvert_to
        \ .. " <" .. v:fname_in .. " >" .. v:fname_out)
  return v:shell_error
endfun
The related Vim variables are: v:charconvert_from name of the current encoding v:charconvert_to name of the desired encoding v:fname_in name of the input file v:fname_out name of the output file Note that v:fname_in and v:fname_out will never be the same.
The advantage of using a function call without arguments is that it is faster, see expr-option-function.
If the 'charconvert' expression starts with s: or <SID>, then it is replaced with the script ID (local-function). Example:
set charconvert=s:MyConvert()
set charconvert=<SID>SomeConvert()
Otherwise the expression is evaluated in the context of the script where the option was set, thus script-local items are available.
This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'cindent' 'cin' 'nocindent' 'nocin' 'cindent' 'cin' boolean (default off) local to buffer Enables automatic C program indenting. See 'cinkeys' to set the keys that trigger reindenting in insert mode and 'cinoptions' to set your preferred indent style. If 'indentexpr' is not empty, it overrules 'cindent'. If 'lisp' is not on and both 'indentexpr' and 'equalprg' are empty, the "=" operator indents using this algorithm rather than calling an external program. See C-indenting. When you don't like the way 'cindent' works, try the 'smartindent' option or 'indentexpr'.
'cinkeys' 'cink' 'cinkeys' 'cink' string (default "0{,0},0),0],:,0#,!^F,o,O,e") local to buffer A list of keys that, when typed in Insert mode, cause reindenting of the current line. Only used if 'cindent' is on and 'indentexpr' is empty. For the format of this option see cinkeys-format. See C-indenting.
'cinoptions' 'cino' 'cinoptions' 'cino' string (default "") local to buffer The 'cinoptions' affect the way 'cindent' reindents lines in a C program. See cinoptions-values for the values of this option, and C-indenting for info on C indenting in general.
'cinscopedecls' 'cinsd' 'cinscopedecls' 'cinsd' string (default "public,protected,private") local to buffer Keywords that are interpreted as a C++ scope declaration by cino-g. Useful e.g. for working with the Qt framework that defines additional scope declarations "signals", "public slots" and "private slots":
set cinscopedecls+=signals,public\ slots,private\ slots
'cinwords' 'cinw' 'cinwords' 'cinw' string (default "if,else,while,do,for,switch") local to buffer These keywords start an extra indent in the next line when 'smartindent' or 'cindent' is set. For 'cindent' this is only done at an appropriate place (inside {}). Note that 'ignorecase' isn't used for 'cinwords'. If case doesn't matter, include the keyword both the uppercase and lowercase: "if,If,IF".
'clipboard' 'cb' 'clipboard' 'cb' string (default "") global This option is a list of comma-separated names. These names are recognized:
clipboard-unnamed
unnamed When included, Vim will use the clipboard register "*" for all yank, delete, change and put operations which would normally go to the unnamed register. When a register is explicitly specified, it will always be used regardless of whether "unnamed" is in 'clipboard' or not. The clipboard register can always be explicitly accessed using the "* notation. Also see clipboard.
clipboard-unnamedplus
unnamedplus A variant of the "unnamed" flag which uses the clipboard register "+" (quoteplus) instead of register "*" for all yank, delete, change and put operations which would normally go to the unnamed register. When "unnamed" is also included to the option, yank and delete operations (but not put) will additionally copy the text into register "*". See clipboard.
'cmdheight' 'ch' 'cmdheight' 'ch' number (default 1) global or local to tab page global-local Number of screen lines to use for the command-line. Helps avoiding hit-enter prompts. The value of this option is stored with the tab page, so that each tab page can have a different value.
When 'cmdheight' is zero, there is no command-line unless it is being used. The command-line will cover the last line of the screen when shown.
WARNING: cmdheight=0 is considered experimental. Expect some unwanted behaviour. Some 'shortmess' flags and similar mechanism might fail to take effect, causing unwanted hit-enter prompts. Some informative messages, both from Nvim itself and plugins, will not be displayed.
'cmdwinheight' 'cwh' 'cmdwinheight' 'cwh' number (default 7) global Number of screen lines to use for the command-line window. cmdwin
'colorcolumn' 'cc' 'colorcolumn' 'cc' string (default "") local to window 'colorcolumn' is a comma-separated list of screen columns that are highlighted with ColorColumn hl-ColorColumn. Useful to align text. Will make screen redrawing slower. The screen column can be an absolute number, or a number preceded with '+' or '-', which is added to or subtracted from 'textwidth'.
set cc=+1          " highlight column after 'textwidth'
set cc=+1,+2,+3  " highlight three columns after 'textwidth'
hi ColorColumn ctermbg=lightgrey guibg=lightgrey
When 'textwidth' is zero then the items with '-' and '+' are not used. A maximum of 256 columns are highlighted.
'columns' 'co' E594 'columns' 'co' number (default 80 or terminal width) global Number of columns of the screen. Normally this is set by the terminal initialization and does not have to be set by hand. When Vim is running in the GUI or in a resizable window, setting this option will cause the window size to be changed. When you only want to use the size for the GUI, put the command in your ginit.vim file. When you set this option and Vim is unable to change the physical number of columns of the display, the display may be messed up. For the GUI it is always possible and Vim limits the number of columns to what fits on the screen. You can use this command to get the widest window possible:
set columns=9999
Minimum value is 12, maximum value is 10000.
'comments' 'com' E524 E525 'comments' 'com' string (default "s1:/*,mb:*,ex:*/,://,b:#,:%,:XCOMM,n:>,fb:-,fb:•") local to buffer A comma-separated list of strings that can start a comment line. See format-comments. See option-backslash about using backslashes to insert a space.
'commentstring' 'cms' E537 'commentstring' 'cms' string (default "") local to buffer A template for a comment. The "%s" in the value is replaced with the comment text, and should be padded with a space when possible. Used for commenting and to add markers for folding, see fold-marker.
'complete' 'cpt' E535 'complete' 'cpt' string (default ".,w,b,u,t") local to buffer This option specifies how keyword completion ins-completion works when CTRL-P or CTRL-N are used. It is also used for whole-line completion i_CTRL-X_CTRL-L. It indicates the type of completion and the places to scan. It is a comma-separated list of flags: . scan the current buffer ('wrapscan' is ignored) w scan buffers from other windows b scan other loaded buffers that are in the buffer list u scan the unloaded buffers that are in the buffer list U scan the buffers that are not in the buffer list k scan the files given with the 'dictionary' option kspell use the currently active spell checking spell k{dict} scan the file {dict}. Several "k" flags can be given, patterns are valid too. For example:
set cpt=k/usr/dict/*,k~/spanish
s scan the files given with the 'thesaurus' option s{tsr} scan the file {tsr}. Several "s" flags can be given, patterns are valid too. i scan current and included files d scan current and included files for defined name or macro i_CTRL-X_CTRL-D ] tag completion t same as "]" f scan the buffer names (as opposed to buffer contents)
Unloaded buffers are not loaded, thus their autocmds :autocmd are not executed, this may lead to unexpected completions from some files (gzipped files for example). Unloaded buffers are not scanned for whole-line completion.
As you can see, CTRL-N and CTRL-P can be used to do any 'iskeyword'- based expansion (e.g., dictionary i_CTRL-X_CTRL-K, included patterns i_CTRL-X_CTRL-I, tags i_CTRL-X_CTRL-] and normal expansions).
'completefunc' 'cfu' 'completefunc' 'cfu' string (default "") local to buffer This option specifies a function to be used for Insert mode completion with CTRL-X CTRL-U. i_CTRL-X_CTRL-U See complete-functions for an explanation of how the function is invoked and what it should return. The value can be the name of a function, a lambda or a Funcref. See option-value-function for more information. This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'completeitemalign' 'cia' 'completeitemalign' 'cia' string (default "abbr,kind,menu") global A comma-separated list of complete-items that controls the alignment and display order of items in the popup menu during Insert mode completion. The supported values are abbr, kind, and menu. These options allow to customize how the completion items are shown in the popup menu. Note: must always contain those three values in any order.
'completeopt' 'cot' 'completeopt' 'cot' string (default "menu,preview") global or local to buffer global-local A comma-separated list of options for Insert mode completion ins-completion. The supported values are:
menu Use a popup menu to show the possible completions. The menu is only shown when there is more than one match and sufficient colors are available. ins-completion-menu
menuone Use the popup menu also when there is only one match. Useful when there is additional information about the match, e.g., what file it comes from.
longest Only insert the longest common text of the matches. If the menu is displayed you can use CTRL-L to add more characters. Whether case is ignored depends on the kind of completion. For buffer text the 'ignorecase' option is used.
preview Show extra information about the currently selected completion in the preview window. Only works in combination with "menu" or "menuone".
popup Show extra information about the currently selected completion in a popup window. Only works in combination with "menu" or "menuone". Overrides "preview".
noinsert Do not insert any text for a match until the user selects a match from the menu. Only works in combination with "menu" or "menuone". No effect if "longest" is present.
noselect Do not select a match in the menu, force the user to select one from the menu. Only works in combination with "menu" or "menuone".
fuzzy Enable fuzzy-matching for completion candidates. This allows for more flexible and intuitive matching, where characters can be skipped and matches can be found even if the exact sequence is not typed. Only makes a difference how completion candidates are reduced from the list of alternatives, but not how the candidates are collected (using different completion types).
'completeslash' 'csl' 'completeslash' 'csl' string (default "") local to buffer only for MS-Windows When this option is set it overrules 'shellslash' for completion:
When this option is set to "slash", a forward slash is used for path completion in insert mode. This is useful when editing HTML tag, or Makefile with 'noshellslash' on MS-Windows.
When this option is set to "backslash", backslash is used. This is useful when editing a batch file with 'shellslash' set on MS-Windows.
When this option is empty, same character is used as for 'shellslash'. For Insert mode completion the buffer-local value is used. For command line completion the global value is used.
'concealcursor' 'cocu' 'concealcursor' 'cocu' string (default "") local to window Sets the modes in which text in the cursor line can also be concealed. When the current mode is listed then concealing happens just like in other lines. n Normal mode v Visual mode i Insert mode c Command line editing, for 'incsearch'
'v' applies to all lines in the Visual area, not only the cursor. A useful value is "nc". This is used in help files. So long as you are moving around text is concealed, but when starting to insert text or selecting a Visual area the concealed text is displayed, so that you can see what you are doing. Keep in mind that the cursor position is not always where it's displayed. E.g., when moving vertically it may change column.
'conceallevel' 'cole' 'conceallevel' 'cole' number (default 0) local to window Determine how text with the "conceal" syntax attribute :syn-conceal is shown:
Value Effect
0 Text is shown normally 1 Each block of concealed text is replaced with one character. If the syntax item does not have a custom replacement character defined (see :syn-cchar) the character defined in 'listchars' is used. It is highlighted with the "Conceal" highlight group. 2 Concealed text is completely hidden unless it has a custom replacement character defined (see :syn-cchar). 3 Concealed text is completely hidden.
Note: in the cursor line concealed text is not hidden, so that you can edit and copy the text. This can be changed with the 'concealcursor' option.
'confirm' 'cf' 'noconfirm' 'nocf' 'confirm' 'cf' boolean (default off) global When 'confirm' is on, certain operations that would normally fail because of unsaved changes to a buffer, e.g. ":q" and ":e", instead raise a dialog asking if you wish to save the current file(s). You can still use a ! to unconditionally abandon a buffer. If 'confirm' is off you can still activate confirmation for one command only (this is most useful in mappings) with the :confirm command. Also see the confirm() function and the 'v' flag in 'guioptions'.
'copyindent' 'ci' 'nocopyindent' 'noci' 'copyindent' 'ci' boolean (default off) local to buffer Copy the structure of the existing lines indent when autoindenting a new line. Normally the new indent is reconstructed by a series of tabs followed by spaces as required (unless 'expandtab' is enabled, in which case only spaces are used). Enabling this option makes the new line copy whatever characters were used for indenting on the existing line. 'expandtab' has no effect on these characters, a Tab remains a Tab. If the new indent is greater than on the existing line, the remaining space is filled in the normal manner. See 'preserveindent'.
'cpoptions' 'cpo' cpo 'cpoptions' 'cpo' string (default "aABceFs_") global A sequence of single character flags. When a character is present this indicates Vi-compatible behavior. This is used for things where not being Vi-compatible is mostly or sometimes preferred. 'cpoptions' stands for "compatible-options". Commas can be added for readability. To avoid problems with flags that are added in the future, use the "+=" and "-=" feature of ":set" add-option-flags.
contains behavior
cpo-a
a When included, a ":read" command with a file name argument will set the alternate file name for the current window. cpo-A
A When included, a ":write" command with a file name argument will set the alternate file name for the current window. cpo-b
b "\|" in a ":map" command is recognized as the end of the map command. The '\' is included in the mapping, the text after the '|' is interpreted as the next command. Use a CTRL-V instead of a backslash to include the '|' in the mapping. Applies to all mapping, abbreviation, menu and autocmd commands. See also map_bar. cpo-B
B A backslash has no special meaning in mappings, abbreviations, user commands and the "to" part of the menu commands. Remove this flag to be able to use a backslash like a CTRL-V. For example, the command ":map X \<Esc>" results in X being mapped to: 'B' included: "\^[" (^[ is a real <Esc>) 'B' excluded: "<Esc>" (5 characters) cpo-c
c Searching continues at the end of any match at the cursor position, but not further than the start of the next line. When not present searching continues one character from the cursor position. With 'c' "abababababab" only gets three matches when repeating "/abab", without 'c' there are five matches. cpo-C
C Do not concatenate sourced lines that start with a backslash. See line-continuation. cpo-d
d Using "./" in the 'tags' option doesn't mean to use the tags file relative to the current file, but the tags file in the current directory. cpo-D
D Can't use CTRL-K to enter a digraph after Normal mode commands with a character argument, like r, f and t. cpo-e
e When executing a register with ":@r", always add a <CR> to the last line, also when the register is not linewise. If this flag is not present, the register is not linewise and the last line does not end in a <CR>, then the last line is put on the command-line and can be edited before hitting <CR>. cpo-E
E It is an error when using "y", "d", "c", "g~", "gu" or "gU" on an Empty region. The operators only work when at least one character is to be operated on. Example: This makes "y0" fail in the first column. cpo-f
f When included, a ":read" command with a file name argument will set the file name for the current buffer, if the current buffer doesn't have a file name yet. cpo-F
F When included, a ":write" command with a file name argument will set the file name for the current buffer, if the current buffer doesn't have a file name yet. Also see cpo-P. cpo-i
i When included, interrupting the reading of a file will leave it modified. cpo-I
I When moving the cursor up or down just after inserting indent for 'autoindent', do not delete the indent. cpo-J
J A sentence has to be followed by two spaces after the '.', '!' or '?'. A <Tab> is not recognized as white space. cpo-K
K Don't wait for a key code to complete when it is halfway through a mapping. This breaks mapping <F1><F1> when only part of the second <F1> has been read. It enables cancelling the mapping by typing <F1><Esc>. cpo-l
l Backslash in a [] range in a search pattern is taken literally, only "\]", "\^", "\-" and "\\" are special. See /[] 'l' included: "/[ \t]" finds <Space>, '\' and 't' 'l' excluded: "/[ \t]" finds <Space> and <Tab> cpo-L
L When the 'list' option is set, 'wrapmargin', 'textwidth', 'softtabstop' and Virtual Replace mode (see gR) count a <Tab> as two characters, instead of the normal behavior of a <Tab>. cpo-m
m When included, a showmatch will always wait half a second. When not included, a showmatch will wait half a second or until a character is typed. 'showmatch' cpo-M
M When excluded, "%" matching will take backslashes into account. Thus in "( \( )" and "\( ( \)" the outer parenthesis match. When included "%" ignores backslashes, which is Vi compatible. cpo-n
n When included, the column used for 'number' and 'relativenumber' will also be used for text of wrapped lines. cpo-o
o Line offset to search command is not remembered for next search. cpo-O
O Don't complain if a file is being overwritten, even when it didn't exist when editing it. This is a protection against a file unexpectedly created by someone else. Vi didn't complain about this. cpo-P
P When included, a ":write" command that appends to a file will set the file name for the current buffer, if the current buffer doesn't have a file name yet and the 'F' flag is also included cpo-F. cpo-q
q When joining multiple lines leave the cursor at the position where it would be when joining two lines. cpo-r
r Redo ("." command) uses "/" to repeat a search command, instead of the actually used search string. cpo-R
R Remove marks from filtered lines. Without this flag marks are kept like :keepmarks was used. cpo-s
s Set buffer options when entering the buffer for the first time. This is like it is in Vim version 3.0. And it is the default. If not present the options are set when the buffer is created. cpo-S
S Set buffer options always when entering a buffer (except 'readonly', 'fileformat', 'filetype' and 'syntax'). This is the (most) Vi compatible setting. The options are set to the values in the current buffer. When you change an option and go to another buffer, the value is copied. Effectively makes the buffer options global to all buffers.
's' 'S' copy buffer options no no when buffer created yes no when buffer first entered (default) X yes each time when buffer entered (vi comp.) cpo-t
t Search pattern for the tag command is remembered for "n" command. Otherwise Vim only puts the pattern in the history for search pattern, but doesn't change the last used search pattern. cpo-u
u Undo is Vi compatible. See undo-two-ways. cpo-v
v Backspaced characters remain visible on the screen in Insert mode. Without this flag the characters are erased from the screen right away. With this flag the screen newly typed text overwrites backspaced characters. cpo-W
W Don't overwrite a readonly file. When omitted, ":w!" overwrites a readonly file, if possible. cpo-x
x <Esc> on the command-line executes the command-line. The default in Vim is to abandon the command-line, because <Esc> normally aborts a command. c_<Esc> cpo-X
X When using a count with "R" the replaced text is deleted only once. Also when repeating "R" with "." and a count. cpo-y
y A yank command can be redone with ".". Think twice if you really want to use this, it may break some plugins, since most people expect "." to only repeat a change. cpo-Z
Z When using "w!" while the 'readonly' option is set, don't reset 'readonly'. cpo-!
! When redoing a filter command, use the last used external command, whatever it was. Otherwise the last used -filter- command is used. cpo-$
$ When making a change to one line, don't redisplay the line, but put a '$' at the end of the changed text. The changed text will be overwritten when you type the new text. The line is redisplayed if you type any command that moves the cursor from the insertion point. cpo-%
% Vi-compatible matching is done for the "%" command. Does not recognize "#if", "#endif", etc. Does not recognize "/*" and "*/". Parens inside single and double quotes are also counted, causing a string that contains a paren to disturb the matching. For example, in a line like "if (strcmp("foo(", s))" the first paren does not match the last one. When this flag is not included, parens inside single and double quotes are treated specially. When matching a paren outside of quotes, everything inside quotes is ignored. When matching a paren inside quotes, it will find the matching one (if there is one). This works very well for C programs. This flag is also used for other features, such as C-indenting. cpo-+
+ When included, a ":write file" command will reset the 'modified' flag of the buffer, even though the buffer itself may still be different from its file. cpo->
> When appending to a register, put a line break before the appended text. cpo-;
; When using , or ; to repeat the last t search and the cursor is right in front of the searched character, the cursor won't move. When not included, the cursor would skip over it and jump to the following occurrence. cpo-_
_ When using cw on a word, do not include the whitespace following the word in the motion.
'cursorbind' 'crb' 'nocursorbind' 'nocrb' 'cursorbind' 'crb' boolean (default off) local to window When this option is set, as the cursor in the current window moves other cursorbound windows (windows that also have this option set) move their cursors to the corresponding line and column. This option is useful for viewing the differences between two versions of a file (see 'diff'); in diff mode, inserted and deleted lines (though not characters within a line) are taken into account.
'cursorcolumn' 'cuc' 'nocursorcolumn' 'nocuc' 'cursorcolumn' 'cuc' boolean (default off) local to window Highlight the screen column of the cursor with CursorColumn hl-CursorColumn. Useful to align text. Will make screen redrawing slower. If you only want the highlighting in the current window you can use these autocommands:
au WinLeave * set nocursorline nocursorcolumn
au WinEnter * set cursorline cursorcolumn
'cursorline' 'cul' 'nocursorline' 'nocul' 'cursorline' 'cul' boolean (default off) local to window Highlight the text line of the cursor with CursorLine hl-CursorLine. Useful to easily spot the cursor. Will make screen redrawing slower. When Visual mode is active the highlighting isn't used to make it easier to see the selected text.
'cursorlineopt' 'culopt' 'cursorlineopt' 'culopt' string (default "both") local to window Comma-separated list of settings for how 'cursorline' is displayed. Valid values: "line" Highlight the text line of the cursor with CursorLine hl-CursorLine. "screenline" Highlight only the screen line of the cursor with CursorLine hl-CursorLine. "number" Highlight the line number of the cursor with CursorLineNr hl-CursorLineNr.
Special value: "both" Alias for the values "line,number".
"line" and "screenline" cannot be used together.
'debug'
'debug' string (default "") global These values can be used: msg Error messages that would otherwise be omitted will be given anyway. throw Error messages that would otherwise be omitted will be given anyway and also throw an exception and set v:errmsg. beep A message will be given when otherwise only a beep would be produced. The values can be combined, separated by a comma. "msg" and "throw" are useful for debugging 'foldexpr', 'formatexpr' or 'indentexpr'.
'define' 'def' 'define' 'def' string (default "") global or local to buffer global-local Pattern to be used to find a macro definition. It is a search pattern, just like for the "/" command. This option is used for the commands like "[i" and "[d" include-search. The 'isident' option is used to recognize the defined name after the match:
{match with 'define'}{non-ID chars}{defined name}{non-ID char}
See option-backslash about inserting backslashes to include a space or backslash. For C++ this value would be useful, to include const type declarations:
^\(#\s*define\|[a-z]*\s*const\s*[a-z]*\)
You can also use "\ze" just before the name and continue the pattern to check what is following. E.g. for Javascript, if a function is defined with func_name = function(args):
^\s*\ze\i\+\s*=\s*function(
If the function is defined with func_name : function() {...:
^\s*\ze\i\+\s*[:]\s*(*function\s*(
When using the ":set" command, you need to double the backslashes! To avoid that use :let with a single quote string:
let &l:define = '^\s*\ze\k\+\s*=\s*function('
'delcombine' 'deco' 'nodelcombine' 'nodeco' 'delcombine' 'deco' boolean (default off) global If editing Unicode and this option is set, backspace and Normal mode "x" delete each combining character on its own. When it is off (the default) the character along with its combining characters are deleted. Note: When 'delcombine' is set "xx" may work differently from "2x"!
This is useful for Arabic, Hebrew and many other languages where one may have combining characters overtop of base characters, and want to remove only the combining ones.
'dictionary' 'dict' 'dictionary' 'dict' string (default "") global or local to buffer global-local List of file names, separated by commas, that are used to lookup words for keyword completion commands i_CTRL-X_CTRL-K. Each file should contain a list of words. This can be one word per line, or several words per line, separated by non-keyword characters (white space is preferred). Maximum line length is 510 bytes.
When this option is empty or an entry "spell" is present, and spell checking is enabled, words in the word lists for the currently active 'spelllang' are used. See spell.
To include a comma in a file name precede it with a backslash. Spaces after a comma are ignored, otherwise spaces are included in the file name. See option-backslash about using backslashes. This has nothing to do with the Dictionary variable type. Where to find a list of words?
BSD/macOS include the "/usr/share/dict/words" file.
Try "apt install spell" to get the "/usr/share/dict/words" file on apt-managed systems (Debian/Ubuntu). The use of :set+= and :set-= is preferred when adding or removing directories from the list. This avoids problems when a future version uses another default. Backticks cannot be used in this option for security reasons.
'diff' 'nodiff' 'diff' boolean (default off) local to window Join the current window in the group of windows that shows differences between files. See diff-mode.
'diffexpr' 'dex' 'diffexpr' 'dex' string (default "") global Expression which is evaluated to obtain a diff file (either ed-style or unified-style) from two versions of a file. See diff-diffexpr. This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'diffopt' 'dip' 'diffopt' 'dip' string (default "internal,filler,closeoff") global Option settings for diff mode. It can consist of the following items. All are optional. Items must be separated by a comma.
filler Show filler lines, to keep the text synchronized with a window that has inserted lines at the same position. Mostly useful when windows are side-by-side and 'scrollbind' is set.
context:{n} Use a context of {n} lines between a change and a fold that contains unchanged lines. When omitted a context of six lines is used. When using zero the context is actually one, since folds require a line in between, also for a deleted line. Set it to a very large value (999999) to disable folding completely. See fold-diff.
iblank Ignore changes where lines are all blank. Adds the "-B" flag to the "diff" command if 'diffexpr' is empty. Check the documentation of the "diff" command for what this does exactly. NOTE: the diff windows will get out of sync, because no differences between blank lines are taken into account.
icase Ignore changes in case of text. "a" and "A" are considered the same. Adds the "-i" flag to the "diff" command if 'diffexpr' is empty.
iwhite Ignore changes in amount of white space. Adds the "-b" flag to the "diff" command if 'diffexpr' is empty. Check the documentation of the "diff" command for what this does exactly. It should ignore adding trailing white space, but not leading white space.
iwhiteall Ignore all white space changes. Adds the "-w" flag to the "diff" command if 'diffexpr' is empty. Check the documentation of the "diff" command for what this does exactly.
iwhiteeol Ignore white space changes at end of line. Adds the "-Z" flag to the "diff" command if 'diffexpr' is empty. Check the documentation of the "diff" command for what this does exactly.
horizontal Start diff mode with horizontal splits (unless explicitly specified otherwise).
vertical Start diff mode with vertical splits (unless explicitly specified otherwise).
closeoff When a window is closed where 'diff' is set and there is only one window remaining in the same tab page with 'diff' set, execute :diffoff in that window. This undoes a :diffsplit command.
hiddenoff Do not use diff mode for a buffer when it becomes hidden.
foldcolumn:{n} Set the 'foldcolumn' option to {n} when starting diff mode. Without this 2 is used.
followwrap Follow the 'wrap' option and leave as it is.
internal Use the internal diff library. This is ignored when 'diffexpr' is set. E960 When running out of memory when writing a buffer this item will be ignored for diffs involving that buffer. Set the 'verbose' option to see when this happens.
indent-heuristic Use the indent heuristic for the internal diff library.
linematch:{n} Enable a second stage diff on each generated hunk in order to align lines. When the total number of lines in a hunk exceeds {n}, the second stage diff will not be performed as very large hunks can cause noticeable lag. A recommended setting is "linematch:60", as this will enable alignment for a 2 buffer diff with hunks of up to 30 lines each, or a 3 buffer diff with hunks of up to 20 lines each.
algorithm:{text} Use the specified diff algorithm with the internal diff engine. Currently supported algorithms are: myers the default algorithm minimal spend extra time to generate the smallest possible diff patience patience diff algorithm histogram histogram diff algorithm
Examples:
set diffopt=internal,filler,context:4
set diffopt=
set diffopt=internal,filler,foldcolumn:3
set diffopt-=internal  " do NOT use the internal diff parser
'digraph' 'dg' 'nodigraph' 'nodg' 'digraph' 'dg' boolean (default off) global Enable the entering of digraphs in Insert mode with {char1} <BS> {char2}. See digraphs.
'directory' 'dir' 'directory' 'dir' string (default "$XDG_STATE_HOME/nvim/swap//") global List of directory names for the swap file, separated with commas.
Possible items:
The swap file will be created in the first directory where this is possible. If it is not possible in any directory, but last directory listed in the option does not exist, it is created.
Empty means that no swap file will be used (recovery is impossible!) and no E303 error will be given.
A directory "." means to put the swap file in the same directory as the edited file. On Unix, a dot is prepended to the file name, so it doesn't show in a directory listing. On MS-Windows the "hidden" attribute is set and a dot prepended if possible.
A directory starting with "./" (or ".\" for MS-Windows) means to put the swap file relative to where the edited file is. The leading "." is replaced with the path name of the edited file.
For Unix and Win32, if a directory ends in two path separators "//", the swap file name will be built from the complete path to the file with all path separators replaced by percent '%' signs (including the colon following the drive letter on Win32). This will ensure file name uniqueness in the preserve directory. On Win32, it is also possible to end with "\\". However, When a separating comma is following, you must use "//", since "\\" will include the comma in the file name. Therefore it is recommended to use '//', instead of '\\'.
Spaces after the comma are ignored, other spaces are considered part of the directory name. To have a space at the start of a directory name, precede it with a backslash.
To include a comma in a directory name precede it with a backslash.
A directory name may end in an ':' or '/'.
Environment variables are expanded :set_env.
Careful with '\' characters, type one before a space, type two to get one in the option (see option-backslash), for example:
set dir=c:\\tmp,\ dir\\,with\\,commas,\\\ dir\ with\ spaces
Editing the same file twice will result in a warning. Using "/tmp" on is discouraged: if the system crashes you lose the swap file. And others on the computer may be able to see the files. Use :set+= and :set-= when adding or removing directories from the list, this avoids problems if the Nvim default is changed.
This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'display' 'dy' 'display' 'dy' string (default "lastline") global Change the way text is displayed. This is a comma-separated list of flags: lastline When included, as much as possible of the last line in a window will be displayed. "@@@" is put in the last columns of the last screen line to indicate the rest of the line is not displayed. truncate Like "lastline", but "@@@" is displayed in the first column of the last screen line. Overrules "lastline". uhex Show unprintable characters hexadecimal as <xx> instead of using ^C and ~C. msgsep Obsolete flag. Allowed but takes no effect. msgsep
When neither "lastline" nor "truncate" is included, a last line that doesn't fit is replaced with "@" lines.
The "@" character can be changed by setting the "lastline" item in 'fillchars'. The character is highlighted with hl-NonText.
'eadirection' 'ead' 'eadirection' 'ead' string (default "both") global Tells when the 'equalalways' option applies: ver vertically, width of windows is not affected hor horizontally, height of windows is not affected both width and height of windows is affected
'emoji' 'emo' 'noemoji' 'noemo' 'emoji' 'emo' boolean (default on) global When on all Unicode emoji characters are considered to be full width. This excludes "text emoji" characters, which are normally displayed as single width. However, such "text emoji" are treated as full-width emoji if they are followed by the U+FE0F variant selector.
Unfortunately there is no good specification for this and it has been determined on trial-and-error basis. Use the setcellwidths() function to change the behavior.
'encoding' 'enc' 'encoding' 'enc' string (default "utf-8") global String-encoding used internally and for RPC communication. Always UTF-8.
See 'fileencoding' to control file-content encoding.
'endoffile' 'eof' 'noendoffile' 'noeof' 'endoffile' 'eof' boolean (default off) local to buffer Indicates that a CTRL-Z character was found at the end of the file when reading it. Normally only happens when 'fileformat' is "dos". When writing a file and this option is off and the 'binary' option is on, or 'fixeol' option is off, no CTRL-Z will be written at the end of the file. See eol-and-eof for example settings.
'endofline' 'eol' 'noendofline' 'noeol' 'endofline' 'eol' boolean (default on) local to buffer When writing a file and this option is off and the 'binary' option is on, or 'fixeol' option is off, no <EOL> will be written for the last line in the file. This option is automatically set or reset when starting to edit a new file, depending on whether file has an <EOL> for the last line in the file. Normally you don't have to set or reset this option. When 'binary' is off and 'fixeol' is on the value is not used when writing the file. When 'binary' is on or 'fixeol' is off it is used to remember the presence of a <EOL> for the last line in the file, so that when you write the file the situation from the original file can be kept. But you can change it if you want to. See eol-and-eof for example settings.
'equalalways' 'ea' 'noequalalways' 'noea' 'equalalways' 'ea' boolean (default on) global When on, all the windows are automatically made the same size after splitting or closing a window. This also happens the moment the option is switched on. When off, splitting a window will reduce the size of the current window and leave the other windows the same. When closing a window the extra lines are given to the window next to it (depending on 'splitbelow' and 'splitright'). When mixing vertically and horizontally split windows, a minimal size is computed and some windows may be larger if there is room. The 'eadirection' option tells in which direction the size is affected. Changing the height and width of a window can be avoided by setting 'winfixheight' and 'winfixwidth', respectively. If a window size is specified when creating a new window sizes are currently not equalized (it's complicated, but may be implemented in the future).
'equalprg' 'ep' 'equalprg' 'ep' string (default "") global or local to buffer global-local External program to use for "=" command. When this option is empty the internal formatting functions are used; either 'lisp', 'cindent' or 'indentexpr'. Environment variables are expanded :set_env. See option-backslash about including spaces and backslashes. This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'errorbells' 'eb' 'noerrorbells' 'noeb' 'errorbells' 'eb' boolean (default off) global Ring the bell (beep or screen flash) for error messages. This only makes a difference for error messages, the bell will be used always for a lot of errors without a message (e.g., hitting <Esc> in Normal mode). See 'visualbell' to make the bell behave like a screen flash or do nothing. See 'belloff' to finetune when to ring the bell.
'errorfile' 'ef' 'errorfile' 'ef' string (default "errors.err") global Name of the errorfile for the QuickFix mode (see :cf). When the "-q" command-line argument is used, 'errorfile' is set to the following argument. See -q. NOT used for the ":make" command. See 'makeef' for that. Environment variables are expanded :set_env. See option-backslash about including spaces and backslashes. This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'errorformat' 'efm' 'errorformat' 'efm' string (default is very long) global or local to buffer global-local Scanf-like description of the format for the lines in the error file (see errorformat).
'eventignore' 'ei' 'eventignore' 'ei' string (default "") global A list of autocommand event names, which are to be ignored. When set to "all" or when "all" is one of the items, all autocommand events are ignored, autocommands will not be executed. Otherwise this is a comma-separated list of event names. Example:
set ei=WinEnter,WinLeave
'expandtab' 'et' 'noexpandtab' 'noet' 'expandtab' 'et' boolean (default off) local to buffer In Insert mode: Use the appropriate number of spaces to insert a <Tab>. Spaces are used in indents with the '>' and '<' commands and when 'autoindent' is on. To insert a real tab when 'expandtab' is on, use CTRL-V<Tab>. See also :retab and ins-expandtab.
'exrc' 'ex' 'noexrc' 'noex' 'exrc' 'ex' boolean (default off) global Automatically execute .nvim.lua, .nvimrc, and .exrc files in the current directory, if the file is in the trust list. Use :trust to manage trusted files. See also vim.secure.read().
Compare 'exrc' to editorconfig:
'exrc' can execute any code; editorconfig only specifies settings.
'exrc' is Nvim-specific; editorconfig works in other editors.
This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'fileencoding' 'fenc' E213 'fileencoding' 'fenc' string (default "") local to buffer File-content encoding for the current buffer. Conversion is done with iconv() or as specified with 'charconvert'.
When 'fileencoding' is not UTF-8, conversion will be done when writing the file. For reading see below. When 'fileencoding' is empty, the file will be saved with UTF-8 encoding (no conversion when reading or writing a file).
WARNING: Conversion to a non-Unicode encoding can cause loss of information!
See encoding-names for the possible values. Additionally, values may be specified that can be handled by the converter, see mbyte-conversion.
When reading a file 'fileencoding' will be set from 'fileencodings'. To read a file in a certain encoding it won't work by setting 'fileencoding', use the ++enc argument. One exception: when 'fileencodings' is empty the value of 'fileencoding' is used. For a new file the global value of 'fileencoding' is used.
Prepending "8bit-" and "2byte-" has no meaning here, they are ignored. When the option is set, the value is converted to lowercase. Thus you can set it with uppercase values too. '_' characters are replaced with '-'. If a name is recognized from the list at encoding-names, it is replaced by the standard name. For example "ISO8859-2" becomes "iso-8859-2".
When this option is set, after starting to edit a file, the 'modified' option is set, because the file would be different when written.
Keep in mind that changing 'fenc' from a modeline happens AFTER the text has been read, thus it applies to when the file will be written. If you do set 'fenc' in a modeline, you might want to set 'nomodified' to avoid not being able to ":q".
This option cannot be changed when 'modifiable' is off.
'fileencodings' 'fencs' 'fileencodings' 'fencs' string (default "ucs-bom,utf-8,default,latin1") global This is a list of character encodings considered when starting to edit an existing file. When a file is read, Vim tries to use the first mentioned character encoding. If an error is detected, the next one in the list is tried. When an encoding is found that works, 'fileencoding' is set to it. If all fail, 'fileencoding' is set to an empty string, which means that UTF-8 is used. WARNING: Conversion can cause loss of information! You can use the ++bad argument to specify what is done with characters that can't be converted. For an empty file or a file with only ASCII characters most encodings will work and the first entry of 'fileencodings' will be used (except "ucs-bom", which requires the BOM to be present). If you prefer another encoding use an BufReadPost autocommand event to test if your preferred encoding is to be used. Example:
au BufReadPost * if search('\S', 'w') == 0 |
        \ set fenc=iso-2022-jp | endif
This sets 'fileencoding' to "iso-2022-jp" if the file does not contain non-blank characters. When the ++enc argument is used then the value of 'fileencodings' is not used. Note that 'fileencodings' is not used for a new file, the global value of 'fileencoding' is used instead. You can set it with:
setglobal fenc=iso-8859-2
This means that a non-existing file may get a different encoding than an empty file. The special value "ucs-bom" can be used to check for a Unicode BOM (Byte Order Mark) at the start of the file. It must not be preceded by "utf-8" or another Unicode encoding for this to work properly. An entry for an 8-bit encoding (e.g., "latin1") should be the last, because Vim cannot detect an error, thus the encoding is always accepted. The special value "default" can be used for the encoding from the environment. It is useful when your environment uses a non-latin1 encoding, such as Russian. When a file contains an illegal UTF-8 byte sequence it won't be recognized as "utf-8". You can use the 8g8 command to find the illegal byte sequence. WRONG VALUES: WHAT'S WRONG: latin1,utf-8 "latin1" will always be used utf-8,ucs-bom,latin1 BOM won't be recognized in an utf-8 file cp1250,latin1 "cp1250" will always be used If 'fileencodings' is empty, 'fileencoding' is not modified. See 'fileencoding' for the possible values. Setting this option does not have an effect until the next time a file is read.
'fileformat' 'ff' 'fileformat' 'ff' string (default Windows: "dos", Unix: "unix") local to buffer This gives the <EOL> of the current buffer, which is used for reading/writing the buffer from/to a file: dos <CR><NL> unix <NL> mac <CR> When "dos" is used, CTRL-Z at the end of a file is ignored. See file-formats and file-read. For the character encoding of the file see 'fileencoding'. When 'binary' is set, the value of 'fileformat' is ignored, file I/O works like it was set to "unix". This option is set automatically when starting to edit a file and 'fileformats' is not empty and 'binary' is off. When this option is set, after starting to edit a file, the 'modified' option is set, because the file would be different when written. This option cannot be changed when 'modifiable' is off.
'fileformats' 'ffs' 'fileformats' 'ffs' string (default Windows: "dos,unix", Unix: "unix,dos") global This gives the end-of-line (<EOL>) formats that will be tried when starting to edit a new buffer and when reading a file into an existing buffer:
When empty, the format defined with 'fileformat' will be used always. It is not set automatically.
When set to one name, that format will be used whenever a new buffer is opened. 'fileformat' is set accordingly for that buffer. The 'fileformats' name will be used when a file is read into an existing buffer, no matter what 'fileformat' for that buffer is set to.
When more than one name is present, separated by commas, automatic <EOL> detection will be done when reading a file. When starting to edit a file, a check is done for the <EOL>: 1. If all lines end in <CR><NL>, and 'fileformats' includes "dos", 'fileformat' is set to "dos". 2. If a <NL> is found and 'fileformats' includes "unix", 'fileformat' is set to "unix". Note that when a <NL> is found without a preceding <CR>, "unix" is preferred over "dos". 3. If 'fileformat' has not yet been set, and if a <CR> is found, and if 'fileformats' includes "mac", 'fileformat' is set to "mac". This means that "mac" is only chosen when: "unix" is not present or no <NL> is found in the file, and "dos" is not present or no <CR><NL> is found in the file. Except: if "unix" was chosen, but there is a <CR> before the first <NL>, and there appear to be more <CR>s than <NL>s in the first few lines, "mac" is used. 4. If 'fileformat' is still not set, the first name from 'fileformats' is used. When reading a file into an existing buffer, the same is done, but this happens like 'fileformat' has been set appropriately for that file only, the option is not changed. When 'binary' is set, the value of 'fileformats' is not used.
When Vim starts up with an empty buffer the first item is used. You can overrule this by setting 'fileformat' in your .vimrc.
For systems with a Dos-like <EOL> (<CR><NL>), when reading files that are ":source"ed and for vimrc files, automatic <EOL> detection may be done:
When 'fileformats' is empty, there is no automatic detection. Dos format will be used.
When 'fileformats' is set to one or more names, automatic detection is done. This is based on the first <NL> in the file: If there is a <CR> in front of it, Dos format is used, otherwise Unix format is used. Also see file-formats.
'fileignorecase' 'fic' 'nofileignorecase' 'nofic' 'fileignorecase' 'fic' boolean (default on for systems where case in file names is normally ignored) global When set case is ignored when using file names and directories. See 'wildignorecase' for only ignoring case when doing completion.
'filetype' 'ft' 'filetype' 'ft' string (default "") local to buffer local-noglobal When this option is set, the FileType autocommand event is triggered. All autocommands that match with the value of this option will be executed. Thus the value of 'filetype' is used in place of the file name. Otherwise this option does not always reflect the current file type. This option is normally set when the file type is detected. To enable this use the ":filetype on" command. :filetype Setting this option to a different value is most useful in a modeline, for a file for which the file type is not automatically recognized. Example, for in an IDL file:
/* vim: set filetype=idl : */
FileType filetypes When a dot appears in the value then this separates two filetype names, it should therefore not be used for a filetype. Example:
/* vim: set filetype=c.doxygen : */
This will use the "c" filetype first, then the "doxygen" filetype. This works both for filetype plugins and for syntax files. More than one dot may appear. This option is not copied to another buffer, independent of the 's' or 'S' flag in 'cpoptions'. Only alphanumeric characters, '-' and '_' can be used.
'fillchars' 'fcs' 'fillchars' 'fcs' string (default "") global or local to window global-local Characters to fill the statuslines, vertical separators and special lines in the window. It is a comma-separated list of items. Each item has a name, a colon and the value of that item: E1511
item default Used for
stl ' ' statusline of the current window stlnc ' ' statusline of the non-current windows wbr ' ' window bar horiz '─' or '-' horizontal separators :split horizup '┴' or '-' upwards facing horizontal separator horizdown '┬' or '-' downwards facing horizontal separator vert '│' or '|' vertical separators :vsplit vertleft '┤' or '|' left facing vertical separator vertright '├' or '|' right facing vertical separator verthoriz '┼' or '+' overlapping vertical and horizontal separator fold '·' or '-' filling 'foldtext' foldopen '-' mark the beginning of a fold foldclose '+' show a closed fold foldsep '│' or '|' open fold middle marker diff '-' deleted lines of the 'diff' option msgsep ' ' message separator 'display' eob '~' empty lines at the end of a buffer lastline '@' 'display' contains lastline/truncate
Any one that is omitted will fall back to the default.
Note that "horiz", "horizup", "horizdown", "vertleft", "vertright" and "verthoriz" are only used when 'laststatus' is 3, since only vertical window separators are used otherwise.
If 'ambiwidth' is "double" then "horiz", "horizup", "horizdown", "vert", "vertleft", "vertright", "verthoriz", "foldsep" and "fold" default to single-byte alternatives.
Example:
set fillchars=stl:\ ,stlnc:\ ,vert:│,fold:·,diff:-
For the "stl", "stlnc", "foldopen", "foldclose" and "foldsep" items single-byte and multibyte characters are supported. But double-width characters are not supported. E1512
The highlighting used for these items:
item highlight group
stl StatusLine hl-StatusLine stlnc StatusLineNC hl-StatusLineNC wbr WinBar hl-WinBar or hl-WinBarNC horiz WinSeparator hl-WinSeparator horizup WinSeparator hl-WinSeparator horizdown WinSeparator hl-WinSeparator vert WinSeparator hl-WinSeparator vertleft WinSeparator hl-WinSeparator vertright WinSeparator hl-WinSeparator verthoriz WinSeparator hl-WinSeparator fold Folded hl-Folded diff DiffDelete hl-DiffDelete eob EndOfBuffer hl-EndOfBuffer lastline NonText hl-NonText
'fixendofline' 'fixeol' 'nofixendofline' 'nofixeol' 'fixendofline' 'fixeol' boolean (default on) local to buffer When writing a file and this option is on, <EOL> at the end of file will be restored if missing. Turn this option off if you want to preserve the situation from the original file. When the 'binary' option is set the value of this option doesn't matter. See the 'endofline' option. See eol-and-eof for example settings.
'foldclose' 'fcl' 'foldclose' 'fcl' string (default "") global When set to "all", a fold is closed when the cursor isn't in it and its level is higher than 'foldlevel'. Useful if you want folds to automatically close when moving out of them.
'foldcolumn' 'fdc' 'foldcolumn' 'fdc' string (default "0") local to window When and how to draw the foldcolumn. Valid values are: "auto": resize to the minimum amount of folds to display. "auto:[1-9]": resize to accommodate multiple folds up to the selected level "0": to disable foldcolumn "[1-9]": to display a fixed number of columns See folding.
'foldenable' 'fen' 'nofoldenable' 'nofen' 'foldenable' 'fen' boolean (default on) local to window When off, all folds are open. This option can be used to quickly switch between showing all text unfolded and viewing the text with folds (including manually opened or closed folds). It can be toggled with the zi command. The 'foldcolumn' will remain blank when 'foldenable' is off. This option is set by commands that create a new fold or close a fold. See folding.
'foldexpr' 'fde' 'foldexpr' 'fde' string (default "0") local to window The expression used for when 'foldmethod' is "expr". It is evaluated for each line to obtain its fold level. The context is set to the script where 'foldexpr' was set, script-local items can be accessed. See fold-expr for the usage.
The expression will be evaluated in the sandbox if set from a modeline, see sandbox-option. This option can't be set from a modeline when the 'diff' option is on or the 'modelineexpr' option is off.
It is not allowed to change text or jump to another window while evaluating 'foldexpr' textlock.
'foldignore' 'fdi' 'foldignore' 'fdi' string (default "#") local to window Used only when 'foldmethod' is "indent". Lines starting with characters in 'foldignore' will get their fold level from surrounding lines. White space is skipped before checking for this character. The default "#" works well for C programs. See fold-indent.
'foldlevel' 'fdl' 'foldlevel' 'fdl' number (default 0) local to window Sets the fold level: Folds with a higher level will be closed. Setting this option to zero will close all folds. Higher numbers will close fewer folds. This option is set by commands like zm, zM and zR. See fold-foldlevel.
'foldlevelstart' 'fdls' 'foldlevelstart' 'fdls' number (default -1) global Sets 'foldlevel' when starting to edit another buffer in a window. Useful to always start editing with all folds closed (value zero), some folds closed (one) or no folds closed (99). This is done before reading any modeline, thus a setting in a modeline overrules this option. Starting to edit a file for diff-mode also ignores this option and closes all folds. It is also done before BufReadPre autocommands, to allow an autocmd to overrule the 'foldlevel' value for specific files. When the value is negative, it is not used.
'foldmarker' 'fmr' E536 'foldmarker' 'fmr' string (default "{{{,}}}") local to window The start and end marker used when 'foldmethod' is "marker". There must be one comma, which separates the start and end marker. The marker is a literal string (a regular expression would be too slow). See fold-marker.
'foldmethod' 'fdm' 'foldmethod' 'fdm' string (default "manual") local to window The kind of folding used for the current window. Possible values: fold-manual manual Folds are created manually. fold-indent indent Lines with equal indent form a fold. fold-expr expr 'foldexpr' gives the fold level of a line. fold-marker marker Markers are used to specify folds. fold-syntax syntax Syntax highlighting items specify folds. fold-diff diff Fold text that is not changed.
'foldminlines' 'fml' 'foldminlines' 'fml' number (default 1) local to window Sets the number of screen lines above which a fold can be displayed closed. Also for manually closed folds. With the default value of one a fold can only be closed if it takes up two or more screen lines. Set to zero to be able to close folds of just one screen line. Note that this only has an effect on what is displayed. After using "zc" to close a fold, which is displayed open because it's smaller than 'foldminlines', a following "zc" may close a containing fold.
'foldnestmax' 'fdn' 'foldnestmax' 'fdn' number (default 20) local to window Sets the maximum nesting of folds for the "indent" and "syntax" methods. This avoids that too many folds will be created. Using more than 20 doesn't work, because the internal limit is 20.
'foldopen' 'fdo' 'foldopen' 'fdo' string (default "block,hor,mark,percent,quickfix,search,tag,undo") global Specifies for which type of commands folds will be opened, if the command moves the cursor into a closed fold. It is a comma-separated list of items. NOTE: When the command is part of a mapping this option is not used. Add the zv command to the mapping to get the same effect. (rationale: the mapping may want to control opening folds itself)
item commands
all any block (, {, [[, [{, etc. hor horizontal movements: "l", "w", "fx", etc. insert any command in Insert mode jump far jumps: "G", "gg", etc. mark jumping to a mark: "'m", CTRL-O, etc. percent "%" quickfix ":cn", ":crew", ":make", etc. search search for a pattern: "/", "n", "*", "gd", etc. (not for a search pattern in a ":" command) Also for [s and ]s. tag jumping to a tag: ":ta", CTRL-T, etc. undo undo or redo: "u" and CTRL-R When a movement command is used for an operator (e.g., "dl" or "y%") this option is not used. This means the operator will include the whole closed fold. Note that vertical movements are not here, because it would make it very difficult to move onto a closed fold. In insert mode the folds containing the cursor will always be open when text is inserted. To close folds you can re-apply 'foldlevel' with the zx command or set the 'foldclose' option to "all".
'foldtext' 'fdt' 'foldtext' 'fdt' string (default "foldtext()") local to window An expression which is used to specify the text displayed for a closed fold. The context is set to the script where 'foldexpr' was set, script-local items can be accessed. See fold-foldtext for the usage.
The expression will be evaluated in the sandbox if set from a modeline, see sandbox-option. This option cannot be set in a modeline when 'modelineexpr' is off.
It is not allowed to change text or jump to another window while evaluating 'foldtext' textlock.
When set to an empty string, foldtext is disabled, and the line is displayed normally with highlighting and no line wrapping.
'formatexpr' 'fex' 'formatexpr' 'fex' string (default "") local to buffer Expression which is evaluated to format a range of lines for the gq operator or automatic formatting (see 'formatoptions'). When this option is empty 'formatprg' is used.
The v:lnum variable holds the first line to be formatted. The v:count variable holds the number of lines to be formatted. The v:char variable holds the character that is going to be inserted if the expression is being evaluated due to automatic formatting. This can be empty. Don't insert it yet!
Example:
set formatexpr=mylang#Format()
This will invoke the mylang#Format() function in the autoload/mylang.vim file in 'runtimepath'. autoload
The advantage of using a function call without arguments is that it is faster, see expr-option-function.
The expression is also evaluated when 'textwidth' is set and adding text beyond that limit. This happens under the same conditions as when internal formatting is used. Make sure the cursor is kept in the same spot relative to the text then! The mode() function will return "i" or "R" in this situation.
When the expression evaluates to non-zero Vim will fall back to using the internal format mechanism.
If the expression starts with s: or <SID>, then it is replaced with the script ID (local-function). Example:
set formatexpr=s:MyFormatExpr()
set formatexpr=<SID>SomeFormatExpr()
Otherwise, the expression is evaluated in the context of the script where the option was set, thus script-local items are available.
The expression will be evaluated in the sandbox when set from a modeline, see sandbox-option. That stops the option from working, since changing the buffer text is not allowed. This option cannot be set in a modeline when 'modelineexpr' is off. NOTE: This option is set to "" when 'compatible' is set.
'formatlistpat' 'flp' 'formatlistpat' 'flp' string (default "^\s*\d\+[\]:.)}\t ]\s*") local to buffer A pattern that is used to recognize a list header. This is used for the "n" flag in 'formatoptions'. The pattern must match exactly the text that will be the indent for the line below it. You can use /\ze to mark the end of the match while still checking more characters. There must be a character following the pattern, when it matches the whole line it is handled like there is no match. The default recognizes a number, followed by an optional punctuation character and white space.
'formatoptions' 'fo' 'formatoptions' 'fo' string (default "tcqj") local to buffer This is a sequence of letters which describes how automatic formatting is to be done. See fo-table for possible values and gq for how to format text. Commas can be inserted for readability. To avoid problems with flags that are added in the future, use the "+=" and "-=" feature of ":set" add-option-flags.
'formatprg' 'fp' 'formatprg' 'fp' string (default "") global or local to buffer global-local The name of an external program that will be used to format the lines selected with the gq operator. The program must take the input on stdin and produce the output on stdout. The Unix program "fmt" is such a program. If the 'formatexpr' option is not empty it will be used instead. Otherwise, if 'formatprg' option is an empty string, the internal format function will be used C-indenting. Environment variables are expanded :set_env. See option-backslash about including spaces and backslashes. This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'fsync' 'fs' 'nofsync' 'nofs' 'fsync' 'fs' boolean (default on) global When on, the OS function fsync() will be called after saving a file (:write, writefile(), …), swap-file, undo-persistence and shada-file. This flushes the file to disk, ensuring that it is safely written. Slow on some systems: writing buffers, quitting Nvim, and other operations may sometimes take a few seconds.
Files are ALWAYS flushed ('fsync' is ignored) when:
CursorHold event is triggered
:preserve is called
system signals low battery life
Nvim exits abnormally
This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'gdefault' 'gd' 'nogdefault' 'nogd' 'gdefault' 'gd' boolean (default off) global When on, the ":substitute" flag 'g' is default on. This means that all matches in a line are substituted instead of one. When a 'g' flag is given to a ":substitute" command, this will toggle the substitution of all or one match. See complex-change.
command 'gdefault' on 'gdefault' off
:s/// subst. all subst. one :s///g subst. one subst. all :s///gg subst. all subst. one
NOTE: Setting this option may break plugins that rely on the default behavior of the 'g' flag. This will also make the 'g' flag have the opposite effect of that documented in :s_g.
'grepformat' 'gfm' 'grepformat' 'gfm' string (default "%f:%l:%m,%f:%l%m,%f %l%m") global Format to recognize for the ":grep" command output. This is a scanf-like string that uses the same format as the 'errorformat' option: see errorformat.
If ripgrep ('grepprg') is available, this option defaults to %f:%l:%c:%m.
'grepprg' 'gp' 'grepprg' 'gp' string (default see below) global or local to buffer global-local Program to use for the :grep command. This option may contain '%' and '#' characters, which are expanded like when used in a command- line. The placeholder "$*" is allowed to specify where the arguments will be included. Environment variables are expanded :set_env. See option-backslash about including spaces and backslashes. Special value: When 'grepprg' is set to "internal" the :grep command works like :vimgrep, :lgrep like :lvimgrep, :grepadd like :vimgrepadd and :lgrepadd like :lvimgrepadd. See also the section :make_makeprg, since most of the comments there apply equally to 'grepprg'. This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons. This option defaults to:
rg --vimgrep -uu if ripgrep is available (:checkhealth),
grep -HIn $* /dev/null on Unix,
findstr /n $* nul on Windows. Ripgrep can perform additional filtering such as using .gitignore rules and skipping hidden files. This is disabled by default (see the -u option) to more closely match the behaviour of standard grep. You can make ripgrep match Vim's case handling using the -i/--ignore-case and -S/--smart-case options. An OptionSet autocmd can be used to set it up to match automatically.
'guicursor' 'gcr' E545 E546 E548 E549 'guicursor' 'gcr' string (default "n-v-c-sm:block,i-ci-ve:ver25,r-cr-o:hor20") global Configures the cursor style for each mode. Works in the GUI and many terminals. See tui-cursor-shape.
To disable cursor-styling, reset the option:
set guicursor=
To enable mode shapes, "Cursor" highlight, and blinking:
set guicursor=n-v-c:block,i-ci-ve:ver25,r-cr:hor20,o:hor50
  \,a:blinkwait700-blinkoff400-blinkon250-Cursor/lCursor
  \,sm:block-blinkwait175-blinkoff150-blinkon175
The option is a comma-separated list of parts. Each part consists of a mode-list and an argument-list: mode-list:argument-list,mode-list:argument-list,.. The mode-list is a dash separated list of these modes: n Normal mode v Visual mode ve Visual mode with 'selection' "exclusive" (same as 'v', if not specified) o Operator-pending mode i Insert mode r Replace mode c Command-line Normal (append) mode ci Command-line Insert mode cr Command-line Replace mode sm showmatch in Insert mode a all modes The argument-list is a dash separated list of these arguments: hor{N} horizontal bar, {N} percent of the character height ver{N} vertical bar, {N} percent of the character width block block cursor, fills the whole character
Only one of the above three should be present.
Default is "block" for each mode. blinkwait{N} cursor-blinking
blinkon{N} blinkoff{N} blink times for cursor: blinkwait is the delay before the cursor starts blinking, blinkon is the time that the cursor is shown and blinkoff is the time that the cursor is not shown. Times are in msec. When one of the numbers is zero, there is no blinking. E.g.:
set guicursor=n:blinkon0
Default is "blinkon0" for each mode. {group-name} Highlight group that decides the color and font of the cursor. In the TUI:
inverse/reverse and no group-name are interpreted as "host-terminal default cursor colors" which typically means "inverted bg and fg colors".
ctermfg and guifg are ignored. {group-name}/{group-name} Two highlight group names, the first is used when no language mappings are used, the other when they are. language-mapping
Examples of parts: n-c-v:block-nCursor In Normal, Command-line and Visual mode, use a block cursor with colors from the "nCursor" highlight group n-v-c-sm:block,i-ci-ve:ver25-Cursor,r-cr-o:hor20 In Normal et al. modes, use a block cursor with the default colors defined by the host terminal. In Insert-like modes, use a vertical bar cursor with colors from "Cursor" highlight group. In Replace-like modes, use an underline cursor with default colors. i-ci:ver30-iCursor-blinkwait300-blinkon200-blinkoff150 In Insert and Command-line Insert mode, use a 30% vertical bar cursor with colors from the "iCursor" highlight group. Blink a bit faster.
The 'a' mode is different. It will set the given argument-list for all modes. It does not reset anything to defaults. This can be used to do a common setting for all modes. For example, to switch off blinking: "a:blinkon0"
Examples of cursor highlighting:
highlight Cursor gui=reverse guifg=NONE guibg=NONE
highlight Cursor gui=NONE guifg=bg guibg=fg
'guifont' 'gfn' E235 E596 'guifont' 'gfn' string (default "") global This is a list of fonts which will be used for the GUI version of Vim. In its simplest form the value is just one font name. When the font cannot be found you will get an error message. To try other font names a list can be specified, font names separated with commas. The first valid font is used.
Spaces after a comma are ignored. To include a comma in a font name precede it with a backslash. Setting an option requires an extra backslash before a space and a backslash. See also option-backslash. For example:
set guifont=Screen15,\ 7x13,font\\,with\\,commas
will make Vim try to use the font "Screen15" first, and if it fails it will try to use "7x13" and then "font,with,commas" instead.
If none of the fonts can be loaded, Vim will keep the current setting. If an empty font list is given, Vim will try using other resource settings (for X, it will use the Vim.font resource), and finally it will try some builtin default which should always be there ("7x13" in the case of X). The font names given should be "normal" fonts. Vim will try to find the related bold and italic fonts.
For Win32 and Mac OS:
set guifont=*
will bring up a font requester, where you can pick the font you want.
The font name depends on the GUI used.
For Mac OSX you can use something like this:
set guifont=Monaco:h10
E236
Note that the fonts must be mono-spaced (all characters have the same width).
To preview a font on X11, you might be able to use the "xfontsel" program. The "xlsfonts" program gives a list of all available fonts.
For the Win32 GUI E244 E245
takes these options in the font name: hXX - height is XX (points, can be floating-point) wXX - width is XX (points, can be floating-point) b - bold i - italic u - underline s - strikeout cXX - character set XX. Valid charsets are: ANSI, ARABIC, BALTIC, CHINESEBIG5, DEFAULT, EASTEUROPE, GB2312, GREEK, HANGEUL, HEBREW, JOHAB, MAC, OEM, RUSSIAN, SHIFTJIS, SYMBOL, THAI, TURKISH, VIETNAMESE ANSI and BALTIC. Normally you would use "cDEFAULT".
Use a ':' to separate the options.
A '_' can be used in the place of a space, so you don't need to use backslashes to escape the spaces.
Examples: 
set guifont=courier_new:h12:w5:b:cRUSSIAN
set guifont=Andale_Mono:h7.5:w4.5
'guifontwide' 'gfw' E231 E533 E534 'guifontwide' 'gfw' string (default "") global Comma-separated list of fonts to be used for double-width characters. The first font that can be loaded is used. Note: The size of these fonts must be exactly twice as wide as the one specified with 'guifont' and the same height.
When 'guifont' has a valid font and 'guifontwide' is empty Vim will attempt to set 'guifontwide' to a matching double-width font.
'guioptions' 'go' 'guioptions' 'go' string (default "egmrLT" (MS-Windows)) global This option only has an effect in the GUI version of Vim. It is a sequence of letters which describes what components and options of the GUI should be used. To avoid problems with flags that are added in the future, use the "+=" and "-=" feature of ":set" add-option-flags.
Valid letters are as follows: guioptions_a 'go-a' 'a' Autoselect: If present, then whenever VISUAL mode is started, or the Visual area extended, Vim tries to become the owner of the windowing system's global selection. This means that the Visually highlighted text is available for pasting into other applications as well as into Vim itself. When the Visual mode ends, possibly due to an operation on the text, or when an application wants to paste the selection, the highlighted text is automatically yanked into the "* selection register. Thus the selection is still available for pasting into other applications after the VISUAL mode has ended. If not present, then Vim won't become the owner of the windowing system's global selection unless explicitly told to by a yank or delete operation for the "* register. The same applies to the modeless selection. 'go-P'
'P' Like autoselect but using the "+ register instead of the "* register. 'go-A'
'A' Autoselect for the modeless selection. Like 'a', but only applies to the modeless selection.
'guioptions' autoselect Visual autoselect modeless
"" - - "a" yes yes "A" - yes "aA" yes yes
'go-c'
'c' Use console dialogs instead of popup dialogs for simple choices. 'go-d'
'd' Use dark theme variant if available. 'go-e'
'e' Add tab pages when indicated with 'showtabline'. 'guitablabel' can be used to change the text in the labels. When 'e' is missing a non-GUI tab pages line may be used. The GUI tabs are only supported on some systems, currently Mac OS/X and MS-Windows. 'go-i'
'i' Use a Vim icon. 'go-m'
'm' Menu bar is present. 'go-M'
'M' The system menu "$VIMRUNTIME/menu.vim" is not sourced. Note that this flag must be added in the vimrc file, before switching on syntax or filetype recognition (when the gvimrc file is sourced the system menu has already been loaded; the :syntax on and :filetype on commands load the menu too). 'go-g'
'g' Grey menu items: Make menu items that are not active grey. If 'g' is not included inactive menu items are not shown at all. 'go-T'
'T' Include Toolbar. Currently only in Win32 GUI. 'go-r'
'r' Right-hand scrollbar is always present. 'go-R'
'R' Right-hand scrollbar is present when there is a vertically split window. 'go-l'
'l' Left-hand scrollbar is always present. 'go-L'
'L' Left-hand scrollbar is present when there is a vertically split window. 'go-b'
'b' Bottom (horizontal) scrollbar is present. Its size depends on the longest visible line, or on the cursor line if the 'h' flag is included. gui-horiz-scroll 'go-h'
'h' Limit horizontal scrollbar size to the length of the cursor line. Reduces computations. gui-horiz-scroll
And yes, you may even have scrollbars on the left AND the right if you really want to :-). See gui-scrollbars for more information.
'go-v'
'v' Use a vertical button layout for dialogs. When not included, a horizontal layout is preferred, but when it doesn't fit a vertical layout is used anyway. Not supported in GTK 3. 'go-p'
'p' Use Pointer callbacks for X11 GUI. This is required for some window managers. If the cursor is not blinking or hollow at the right moment, try adding this flag. This must be done before starting the GUI. Set it in your gvimrc. Adding or removing it after the GUI has started has no effect. 'go-k'
'k' Keep the GUI window size when adding/removing a scrollbar, or toolbar, tabline, etc. Instead, the behavior is similar to when the window is maximized and will adjust 'lines' and 'columns' to fit to the window. Without the 'k' flag Vim will try to keep 'lines' and 'columns' the same when adding and removing GUI components.
'guitablabel' 'gtl' 'guitablabel' 'gtl' string (default "") global When non-empty describes the text to use in a label of the GUI tab pages line. When empty and when the result is empty Vim will use a default label. See setting-guitablabel for more info.
The format of this option is like that of 'statusline'. 'guitabtooltip' is used for the tooltip, see below. The expression will be evaluated in the sandbox when set from a modeline, see sandbox-option. This option cannot be set in a modeline when 'modelineexpr' is off.
Only used when the GUI tab pages line is displayed. 'e' must be present in 'guioptions'. For the non-GUI tab pages line 'tabline' is used.
'guitabtooltip' 'gtt' 'guitabtooltip' 'gtt' string (default "") global When non-empty describes the text to use in a tooltip for the GUI tab pages line. When empty Vim will use a default tooltip. This option is otherwise just like 'guitablabel' above. You can include a line break. Simplest method is to use :let:
let &guitabtooltip = "line one\nline two"
'helpfile' 'hf' 'helpfile' 'hf' string (default (MS-Windows) "$VIMRUNTIME\doc\help.txt" (others) "$VIMRUNTIME/doc/help.txt") global Name of the main help file. All distributed help files should be placed together in one directory. Additionally, all "doc" directories in 'runtimepath' will be used. Environment variables are expanded :set_env. For example: "$VIMRUNTIME/doc/help.txt". If $VIMRUNTIME is not set, $VIM is also tried. Also see $VIMRUNTIME and option-backslash about including spaces and backslashes. This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'helpheight' 'hh' 'helpheight' 'hh' number (default 20) global Minimal initial height of the help window when it is opened with the ":help" command. The initial height of the help window is half of the current window, or (when the 'ea' option is on) the same as other windows. When the height is less than 'helpheight', the height is set to 'helpheight'. Set to zero to disable.
'helplang' 'hlg' 'helplang' 'hlg' string (default messages language or empty) global Comma-separated list of languages. Vim will use the first language for which the desired help can be found. The English help will always be used as a last resort. You can add "en" to prefer English over another language, but that will only find tags that exist in that language and not in the English help. Example:
set helplang=de,it
This will first search German, then Italian and finally English help files. When using CTRL-] and ":help!" in a non-English help file Vim will try to find the tag in the current language before using this option. See help-translated.
'hidden' 'hid' 'nohidden' 'nohid' 'hidden' 'hid' boolean (default on) global When off a buffer is unloaded (including loss of undo information) when it is abandoned. When on a buffer becomes hidden when it is abandoned. A buffer displayed in another window does not become hidden, of course.
Commands that move through the buffer list sometimes hide a buffer although the 'hidden' option is off when these three are true:
the buffer is modified
'autowrite' is off or writing is not possible
the '!' flag was used Also see windows.
To hide a specific buffer use the 'bufhidden' option. 'hidden' is set for one command with ":hide {command}" :hide.
'history' 'hi' 'history' 'hi' number (default 10000) global A history of ":" commands, and a history of previous search patterns is remembered. This option decides how many entries may be stored in each of these histories (see cmdline-editing). The maximum value is 10000.
'hlsearch' 'hls' 'nohlsearch' 'nohls' 'hlsearch' 'hls' boolean (default on) global When there is a previous search pattern, highlight all its matches. The hl-Search highlight group determines the highlighting for all matches not under the cursor while the hl-CurSearch highlight group (if defined) determines the highlighting for the match under the cursor. If hl-CurSearch is not defined, then hl-Search is used for both. Note that only the matching text is highlighted, any offsets are not applied. See also: 'incsearch' and :match. When you get bored looking at the highlighted matches, you can turn it off with :nohlsearch. This does not change the option value, as soon as you use a search command, the highlighting comes back. 'redrawtime' specifies the maximum time spent on finding matches. When the search pattern can match an end-of-line, Vim will try to highlight all of the matched text. However, this depends on where the search starts. This will be the first line in the window or the first line below a closed fold. A match in a previous line which is not drawn may not continue in a newly drawn line. You can specify whether the highlight status is restored on startup with the 'h' flag in 'shada' shada-h.
'icon' 'noicon' 'icon' boolean (default off, on when title can be restored) global When on, the icon text of the window will be set to the value of 'iconstring' (if it is not empty), or to the name of the file currently being edited. Only the last part of the name is used. Overridden by the 'iconstring' option. Only works if the terminal supports setting window icons.
'iconstring'
'iconstring' string (default "") global When this option is not empty, it will be used for the icon text of the window. This happens only when the 'icon' option is on. Only works if the terminal supports setting window icon text When this option contains printf-style '%' items, they will be expanded according to the rules used for 'statusline'. See 'titlestring' for example settings. This option cannot be set in a modeline when 'modelineexpr' is off.
'ignorecase' 'ic' 'noignorecase' 'noic' 'ignorecase' 'ic' boolean (default off) global Ignore case in search patterns, cmdline-completion, when searching in the tags file, and expr-==. Also see 'smartcase' and 'tagcase'. Can be overruled by using "\c" or "\C" in the pattern, see /ignorecase.
'imcmdline' 'imc' 'noimcmdline' 'noimc' 'imcmdline' 'imc' boolean (default off) global When set the Input Method is always on when starting to edit a command line, unless entering a search pattern (see 'imsearch' for that). Setting this option is useful when your input method allows entering English characters directly, e.g., when it's used to type accented characters with dead keys.
'imdisable' 'imd' 'noimdisable' 'noimd' 'imdisable' 'imd' boolean (default off, on for some systems (SGI)) global When set the Input Method is never used. This is useful to disable the IM when it doesn't work properly. Currently this option is on by default for SGI/IRIX machines. This may change in later releases.
'iminsert' 'imi' 'iminsert' 'imi' number (default 0) local to buffer Specifies whether :lmap or an Input Method (IM) is to be used in Insert mode. Valid values: 0 :lmap is off and IM is off 1 :lmap is ON and IM is off 2 :lmap is off and IM is ON To always reset the option to zero when leaving Insert mode with <Esc> this can be used:
inoremap <ESC> <ESC>:set iminsert=0<CR>
This makes :lmap and IM turn off automatically when leaving Insert mode. Note that this option changes when using CTRL-^ in Insert mode i_CTRL-^. The value is set to 1 when setting 'keymap' to a valid keymap name. It is also used for the argument of commands like "r" and "f".
'imsearch' 'ims' 'imsearch' 'ims' number (default -1) local to buffer Specifies whether :lmap or an Input Method (IM) is to be used when entering a search pattern. Valid values: -1 the value of 'iminsert' is used, makes it look like 'iminsert' is also used when typing a search pattern 0 :lmap is off and IM is off 1 :lmap is ON and IM is off 2 :lmap is off and IM is ON Note that this option changes when using CTRL-^ in Command-line mode c_CTRL-^. The value is set to 1 when it is not -1 and setting the 'keymap' option to a valid keymap name.
'inccommand' 'icm' 'inccommand' 'icm' string (default "nosplit") global When nonempty, shows the effects of :substitute, :smagic, :snomagic and user commands with the :command-preview flag as you type.
Possible values: nosplit Shows the effects of a command incrementally in the buffer. split Like "nosplit", but also shows partial off-screen results in a preview window.
If the preview for built-in commands is too slow (exceeds 'redrawtime') then 'inccommand' is automatically disabled until Command-line-mode is done.
'include' 'inc' 'include' 'inc' string (default "") global or local to buffer global-local Pattern to be used to find an include command. It is a search pattern, just like for the "/" command (See pattern). This option is used for the commands "[i", "]I", "[d", etc. Normally the 'isfname' option is used to recognize the file name that comes after the matched pattern. But if "\zs" appears in the pattern then the text matched from "\zs" to the end, or until "\ze" if it appears, is used as the file name. Use this to include characters that are not in 'isfname', such as a space. You can then use 'includeexpr' to process the matched text. See option-backslash about including spaces and backslashes.
'includeexpr' 'inex' 'includeexpr' 'inex' string (default "") local to buffer Expression to be used to transform the string found with the 'include' option to a file name. Mostly useful to change "." to "/" for Java:
setlocal includeexpr=substitute(v:fname,'\\.','/','g')
The "v:fname" variable will be set to the file name that was detected. Note the double backslash: the :set command first halves them, then one remains in the value, where "\." matches a dot literally. For simple character replacements tr() avoids the need for escaping:
setlocal includeexpr=tr(v:fname,'.','/')
Also used for the gf command if an unmodified file name can't be found. Allows doing "gf" on the name after an 'include' statement. Also used for <cfile>.
If the expression starts with s: or <SID>, then it is replaced with the script ID (local-function). Example:
setlocal includeexpr=s:MyIncludeExpr()
setlocal includeexpr=<SID>SomeIncludeExpr()
Otherwise, the expression is evaluated in the context of the script where the option was set, thus script-local items are available.
It is more efficient if the value is just a function call without arguments, see expr-option-function.
The expression will be evaluated in the sandbox when set from a modeline, see sandbox-option. This option cannot be set in a modeline when 'modelineexpr' is off.
It is not allowed to change text or jump to another window while evaluating 'includeexpr' textlock.
'incsearch' 'is' 'noincsearch' 'nois' 'incsearch' 'is' boolean (default on) global While typing a search command, show where the pattern, as it was typed so far, matches. The matched string is highlighted. If the pattern is invalid or not found, nothing is shown. The screen will be updated often, this is only useful on fast terminals. Note that the match will be shown, but the cursor will return to its original position when no match is found and when pressing <Esc>. You still need to finish the search command with <Enter> to move the cursor to the match. You can use the CTRL-G and CTRL-T keys to move to the next and previous match. c_CTRL-G c_CTRL-T Vim only searches for about half a second. With a complicated pattern and/or a lot of text the match may not be found. This is to avoid that Vim hangs while you are typing the pattern. The hl-IncSearch highlight group determines the highlighting. When 'hlsearch' is on, all matched strings are highlighted too while typing a search command. See also: 'hlsearch'. If you don't want to turn 'hlsearch' on, but want to highlight all matches while searching, you can turn on and off 'hlsearch' with autocmd. Example:
augroup vimrc-incsearch-highlight
  autocmd!
  autocmd CmdlineEnter /,\? :set hlsearch
  autocmd CmdlineLeave /,\? :set nohlsearch
augroup END
CTRL-L can be used to add one character from after the current match to the command line. If 'ignorecase' and 'smartcase' are set and the command line has no uppercase characters, the added character is converted to lowercase. CTRL-R CTRL-W can be used to add the word at the end of the current match, excluding the characters that were already typed.
'indentexpr' 'inde' 'indentexpr' 'inde' string (default "") local to buffer Expression which is evaluated to obtain the proper indent for a line. It is used when a new line is created, for the = operator and in Insert mode as specified with the 'indentkeys' option. When this option is not empty, it overrules the 'cindent' and 'smartindent' indenting. When 'lisp' is set, this option is only used when 'lispoptions' contains "expr:1". The expression is evaluated with v:lnum set to the line number for which the indent is to be computed. The cursor is also in this line when the expression is evaluated (but it may be moved around).
If the expression starts with s: or <SID>, then it is replaced with the script ID (local-function). Example:
set indentexpr=s:MyIndentExpr()
set indentexpr=<SID>SomeIndentExpr()
Otherwise, the expression is evaluated in the context of the script where the option was set, thus script-local items are available.
The advantage of using a function call without arguments is that it is faster, see expr-option-function.
The expression must return the number of spaces worth of indent. It can return "-1" to keep the current indent (this means 'autoindent' is used for the indent). Functions useful for computing the indent are indent(), cindent() and lispindent(). The evaluation of the expression must not have side effects! It must not change the text, jump to another window, etc. Afterwards the cursor position is always restored, thus the cursor may be moved. Normally this option would be set to call a function:
set indentexpr=GetMyIndent()
Error messages will be suppressed, unless the 'debug' option contains "msg". See indent-expression.
The expression will be evaluated in the sandbox when set from a modeline, see sandbox-option. This option cannot be set in a modeline when 'modelineexpr' is off.
It is not allowed to change text or jump to another window while evaluating 'indentexpr' textlock.
'indentkeys' 'indk' 'indentkeys' 'indk' string (default "0{,0},0),0],:,0#,!^F,o,O,e") local to buffer A list of keys that, when typed in Insert mode, cause reindenting of the current line. Only happens if 'indentexpr' isn't empty. The format is identical to 'cinkeys', see indentkeys-format. See C-indenting and indent-expression.
'infercase' 'inf' 'noinfercase' 'noinf' 'infercase' 'inf' boolean (default off) local to buffer When doing keyword completion in insert mode ins-completion, and 'ignorecase' is also on, the case of the match is adjusted depending on the typed text. If the typed text contains a lowercase letter where the match has an upper case letter, the completed part is made lowercase. If the typed text has no lowercase letters and the match has a lowercase letter where the typed text has an uppercase letter, and there is a letter before it, the completed part is made uppercase. With 'noinfercase' the match is used as-is.
'isfname' 'isf' 'isfname' 'isf' string (default for Windows: "@,48-57,/,\,.,-,_,+,,,#,$,%,{,},[,],@-@,!,~,=" otherwise: "@,48-57,/,.,-,_,+,,,#,$,%,~,=") global The characters specified by this option are included in file names and path names. Filenames are used for commands like "gf", "[i" and in the tags file. It is also used for "\f" in a pattern. Multi-byte characters 256 and above are always included, only the characters up to 255 are specified with this option. For UTF-8 the characters 0xa0 to 0xff are included as well. Think twice before adding white space to this option. Although a space may appear inside a file name, the effect will be that Vim doesn't know where a file name starts or ends when doing completion. It most likely works better without a space in 'isfname'.
Note that on systems using a backslash as path separator, Vim tries to do its best to make it work as you would expect. That is a bit tricky, since Vi originally used the backslash to escape special characters. Vim will not remove a backslash in front of a normal file name character on these systems, but it will on Unix and alikes. The '&' and '^' are not included by default, because these are special for cmd.exe.
The format of this option is a list of parts, separated with commas. Each part can be a single character number or a range. A range is two character numbers with '-' in between. A character number can be a decimal number between 0 and 255 or the ASCII character itself (does not work for digits). Example: "_,-,128-140,#-43" (include '_' and '-' and the range 128 to 140 and '#' to 43) If a part starts with '^', the following character number or range will be excluded from the option. The option is interpreted from left to right. Put the excluded character after the range where it is included. To include '^' itself use it as the last character of the option or the end of a range. Example: "^a-z,#,^" (exclude 'a' to 'z', include '#' and '^') If the character is '@', all characters where isalpha() returns TRUE are included. Normally these are the characters a to z and A to Z, plus accented characters. To include '@' itself use "@-@". Examples: "@,^a-z" All alphabetic characters, excluding lower case ASCII letters. "a-z,A-Z,@-@" All letters plus the '@' character. A comma can be included by using it where a character number is expected. Example: "48-57,,,_" Digits, comma and underscore. A comma can be excluded by prepending a '^'. Example: " -~,^,,9" All characters from space to '~', excluding comma, plus <Tab>. See option-backslash about including spaces and backslashes.
'isident' 'isi' 'isident' 'isi' string (default for Windows: "@,48-57,_,128-167,224-235" otherwise: "@,48-57,_,192-255") global The characters given by this option are included in identifiers. Identifiers are used in recognizing environment variables and after a match of the 'define' option. It is also used for "\i" in a pattern. See 'isfname' for a description of the format of this option. For '@' only characters up to 255 are used. Careful: If you change this option, it might break expanding environment variables. E.g., when '/' is included and Vim tries to expand "$HOME/.local/state/nvim/shada/main.shada". Maybe you should change 'iskeyword' instead.
'iskeyword' 'isk' 'iskeyword' 'isk' string (default "@,48-57,_,192-255") local to buffer Keywords are used in searching and recognizing with many commands: "w", "*", "[i", etc. It is also used for "\k" in a pattern. See 'isfname' for a description of the format of this option. For '@' characters above 255 check the "word" character class (any character that is not white space or punctuation). For C programs you could use "a-z,A-Z,48-57,_,.,-,>". For a help file it is set to all non-blank printable characters except "*", '"' and '|' (so that CTRL-] on a command finds the help for that command). When the 'lisp' option is on the '-' character is always included. This option also influences syntax highlighting, unless the syntax uses :syn-iskeyword.
'isprint' 'isp' 'isprint' 'isp' string (default "@,161-255") global The characters given by this option are displayed directly on the screen. It is also used for "\p" in a pattern. The characters from space (ASCII 32) to '~' (ASCII 126) are always displayed directly, even when they are not included in 'isprint' or excluded. See 'isfname' for a description of the format of this option.
Non-printable characters are displayed with two characters: 0 - 31 "^@" - "^_" 32 - 126 always single characters 127 "^?" 128 - 159 "~@" - "~_" 160 - 254 "| " - "|~" 255 "~?" Illegal bytes from 128 to 255 (invalid UTF-8) are displayed as <xx>, with the hexadecimal value of the byte. When 'display' contains "uhex" all unprintable characters are displayed as <xx>. The SpecialKey highlighting will be used for unprintable characters. hl-SpecialKey
Multi-byte characters 256 and above are always included, only the characters up to 255 are specified with this option. When a character is printable but it is not available in the current font, a replacement character will be shown. Unprintable and zero-width Unicode characters are displayed as <xxxx>. There is no option to specify these characters.
'joinspaces' 'js' 'nojoinspaces' 'nojs' 'joinspaces' 'js' boolean (default off) global Insert two spaces after a '.', '?' and '!' with a join command. Otherwise only one space is inserted.
'jumpoptions' 'jop' 'jumpoptions' 'jop' string (default "clean") global List of words that change the behavior of the jumplist. stack Make the jumplist behave like the tagstack. Relative location of entries in the jumplist is preserved at the cost of discarding subsequent entries when navigating backwards in the jumplist and then jumping to a location. jumplist-stack
view When moving through the jumplist, changelist, alternate-file or using mark-motions try to restore the mark-view in which the action occurred.
clean Remove unloaded buffers from the jumplist. EXPERIMENTAL: this flag may change in the future.
'keymap' 'kmp' 'keymap' 'kmp' string (default "") local to buffer Name of a keyboard mapping. See mbyte-keymap. Setting this option to a valid keymap name has the side effect of setting 'iminsert' to one, so that the keymap becomes effective. 'imsearch' is also set to one, unless it was -1 Only alphanumeric characters, '.', '-' and '_' can be used.
'keymodel' 'km' 'keymodel' 'km' string (default "") global List of comma-separated words, which enable special things that keys can do. These values can be used: startsel Using a shifted special key starts selection (either Select mode or Visual mode, depending on "key" being present in 'selectmode'). stopsel Using a not-shifted special key stops selection. Special keys in this context are the cursor keys, <End>, <Home>, <PageUp> and <PageDown>.
'keywordprg' 'kp' 'keywordprg' 'kp' string (default ":Man", Windows: ":help") global or local to buffer global-local Program to use for the K command. Environment variables are expanded :set_env. ":help" may be used to access the Vim internal help. (Note that previously setting the global option to the empty value did this, which is now deprecated.) When the first character is ":", the command is invoked as a Vim Ex command prefixed with [count]. When "man" or "man -s" is used, Vim will automatically translate a [count] for the "K" command to a section number. See option-backslash about including spaces and backslashes. Example:
set keywordprg=man\ -s
set keywordprg=:Man
This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'langmap' 'lmap' E357 E358 'langmap' 'lmap' string (default "") global This option allows switching your keyboard into a special language mode. When you are typing text in Insert mode the characters are inserted directly. When in Normal mode the 'langmap' option takes care of translating these special characters to the original meaning of the key. This means you don't have to change the keyboard mode to be able to execute Normal mode commands. This is the opposite of the 'keymap' option, where characters are mapped in Insert mode. Also consider setting 'langremap' to off, to prevent 'langmap' from applying to characters resulting from a mapping. This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
Example (for Greek, in UTF-8): greek
set langmap=ΑA,ΒB,ΨC,ΔD,ΕE,ΦF,ΓG,ΗH,ΙI,ΞJ,ΚK,ΛL,ΜM,ΝN,ΟO,ΠP,QQ,ΡR,ΣS,ΤT,ΘU,ΩV,WW,ΧX,ΥY,ΖZ,αa,βb,ψc,δd,εe,φf,γg,ηh,ιi,ξj,κk,λl,μm,νn,οo,πp,qq,ρr,σs,τt,θu,ωv,ςw,χx,υy,ζz
Example (exchanges meaning of z and y for commands):
set langmap=zy,yz,ZY,YZ
The 'langmap' option is a list of parts, separated with commas. Each part can be in one of two forms: 1. A list of pairs. Each pair is a "from" character immediately followed by the "to" character. Examples: "aA", "aAbBcC". 2. A list of "from" characters, a semicolon and a list of "to" characters. Example: "abc;ABC" Example: "aA,fgh;FGH,cCdDeE" Special characters need to be preceded with a backslash. These are ";", ',', '"', '|' and backslash itself.
This will allow you to activate vim actions without having to switch back and forth between the languages. Your language characters will be understood as normal vim English characters (according to the langmap mappings) in the following cases: o Normal/Visual mode (commands, buffer/register names, user mappings) o Insert/Replace Mode: Register names after CTRL-R o Insert/Replace Mode: Mappings Characters entered in Command-line mode will NOT be affected by this option. Note that this option can be changed at any time allowing to switch between mappings for different languages/encodings. Use a mapping to avoid having to type it each time!
'langmenu' 'lm' 'langmenu' 'lm' string (default "") global Language to use for menu translation. Tells which file is loaded from the "lang" directory in 'runtimepath':
"lang/menu_" .. &langmenu .. ".vim"
(without the spaces). For example, to always use the Dutch menus, no matter what $LANG is set to:
set langmenu=nl_NL.ISO_8859-1
When 'langmenu' is empty, v:lang is used. Only normal file name characters can be used, /\*?[|<> are illegal. If your $LANG is set to a non-English language but you do want to use the English menus:
set langmenu=none
This option must be set before loading menus, switching on filetype detection or syntax highlighting. Once the menus are defined setting this option has no effect. But you could do this:
source $VIMRUNTIME/delmenu.vim
set langmenu=de_DE.ISO_8859-1
source $VIMRUNTIME/menu.vim
Warning: This deletes all menus that you defined yourself!
'langremap' 'lrm' 'nolangremap' 'nolrm' 'langremap' 'lrm' boolean (default off) global When off, setting 'langmap' does not apply to characters resulting from a mapping. If setting 'langmap' disables some of your mappings, make sure this option is off.
'laststatus' 'ls' 'laststatus' 'ls' number (default 2) global The value of this option influences when the last window will have a status line: 0: never 1: only if there are at least two windows 2: always 3: always and ONLY the last window The screen looks nicer with a status line if you have several windows, but it takes another screen line. status-line
'lazyredraw' 'lz' 'nolazyredraw' 'nolz' 'lazyredraw' 'lz' boolean (default off) global When this option is set, the screen will not be redrawn while executing macros, registers and other commands that have not been typed. Also, updating the window title is postponed. To force an update use :redraw. This may occasionally cause display errors. It is only meant to be set temporarily when performing an operation where redrawing may cause flickering or cause a slowdown.
'linebreak' 'lbr' 'nolinebreak' 'nolbr' 'linebreak' 'lbr' boolean (default off) local to window If on, Vim will wrap long lines at a character in 'breakat' rather than at the last character that fits on the screen. Unlike 'wrapmargin' and 'textwidth', this does not insert <EOL>s in the file, it only affects the way the file is displayed, not its contents. If 'breakindent' is set, line is visually indented. Then, the value of 'showbreak' is used to put in front of wrapped lines. This option is not used when the 'wrap' option is off. Note that <Tab> characters after an <EOL> are mostly not displayed with the right amount of white space.
'lines' E593 'lines' number (default 24 or terminal height) global Number of lines of the Vim window. Normally you don't need to set this. It is done automatically by the terminal initialization code. When Vim is running in the GUI or in a resizable window, setting this option will cause the window size to be changed. When you only want to use the size for the GUI, put the command in your gvimrc file. Vim limits the number of lines to what fits on the screen. You can use this command to get the tallest window possible:
set lines=999
Minimum value is 2, maximum value is 1000.
'linespace' 'lsp' 'linespace' 'lsp' number (default 0) global only in the GUI Number of pixel lines inserted between characters. Useful if the font uses the full character cell height, making lines touch each other. When non-zero there is room for underlining. With some fonts there can be too much room between lines (to have space for ascents and descents). Then it makes sense to set 'linespace' to a negative value. This may cause display problems though!
'lisp' 'nolisp' 'lisp' boolean (default off) local to buffer Lisp mode: When <Enter> is typed in insert mode set the indent for the next line to Lisp standards (well, sort of). Also happens with "cc" or "S". 'autoindent' must also be on for this to work. The 'p' flag in 'cpoptions' changes the method of indenting: Vi compatible or better. Also see 'lispwords'. The '-' character is included in keyword characters. Redefines the "=" operator to use this same indentation algorithm rather than calling an external program if 'equalprg' is empty.
'lispoptions' 'lop' 'lispoptions' 'lop' string (default "") local to buffer Comma-separated list of items that influence the Lisp indenting when enabled with the 'lisp' option. Currently only one item is supported: expr:1 use 'indentexpr' for Lisp indenting when it is set expr:0 do not use 'indentexpr' for Lisp indenting (default) Note that when using 'indentexpr' the = operator indents all the lines, otherwise the first line is not indented (Vi-compatible).
'lispwords' 'lw' 'lispwords' 'lw' string (default is very long) global or local to buffer global-local Comma-separated list of words that influence the Lisp indenting when enabled with the 'lisp' option.
'list' 'nolist' 'list' boolean (default off) local to window List mode: By default, show tabs as ">", trailing spaces as "-", and non-breakable space characters as "+". Useful to see the difference between tabs and spaces and for trailing blanks. Further changed by the 'listchars' option.
When 'listchars' does not contain "tab" field, tabs are shown as "^I" or "<09>", like how unprintable characters are displayed.
The cursor is displayed at the start of the space a Tab character occupies, not at the end as usual in Normal mode. To get this cursor position while displaying Tabs with spaces, use:
set list lcs=tab:\ \
Note that list mode will also affect formatting (set with 'textwidth' or 'wrapmargin') when 'cpoptions' includes 'L'. See 'listchars' for changing the way tabs are displayed.
'listchars' 'lcs' 'listchars' 'lcs' string (default "tab:> ,trail:-,nbsp:+") global or local to window global-local Strings to use in 'list' mode and for the :list command. It is a comma-separated list of string settings. E1511
lcs-eol
eol:c Character to show at the end of each line. When omitted, there is no extra character at the end of the line. lcs-tab
tab:xy[z] Two or three characters to be used to show a tab. The third character is optional.
tab:xy The 'x' is always used, then 'y' as many times as will fit. Thus "tab:>-" displays:
>
>-
>--
etc.
tab:xyz The 'z' is always used, then 'x' is prepended, and then 'y' is used as many times as will fit. Thus "tab:<->" displays:
>
<>
<->
<-->
etc.
When "tab:" is omitted, a tab is shown as ^I. lcs-space
space:c Character to show for a space. When omitted, spaces are left blank. lcs-multispace
multispace:c... One or more characters to use cyclically to show for multiple consecutive spaces. Overrides the "space" setting, except for single spaces. When omitted, the "space" setting is used. For example, :set listchars=multispace:---+ shows ten consecutive spaces as:
---+---+--
lcs-lead
lead:c Character to show for leading spaces. When omitted, leading spaces are blank. Overrides the "space" and "multispace" settings for leading spaces. You can combine it with "tab:", for example:
set listchars+=tab:>-,lead:.
lcs-leadmultispace
leadmultispace:c... Like the lcs-multispace value, but for leading spaces only. Also overrides lcs-lead for leading multiple spaces. :set listchars=leadmultispace:---+ shows ten consecutive leading spaces as:
---+---+--XXX
Where "XXX" denotes the first non-blank characters in the line. lcs-trail
trail:c Character to show for trailing spaces. When omitted, trailing spaces are blank. Overrides the "space" and "multispace" settings for trailing spaces. lcs-extends
extends:c Character to show in the last column, when 'wrap' is off and the line continues beyond the right of the screen. lcs-precedes
precedes:c Character to show in the first visible column of the physical line, when there is text preceding the character visible in the first column. lcs-conceal
conceal:c Character to show in place of concealed text, when 'conceallevel' is set to 1. A space when omitted. lcs-nbsp
nbsp:c Character to show for a non-breakable space character (0xA0 (160 decimal) and U+202F). Left blank when omitted.
The characters ':' and ',' should not be used. UTF-8 characters can be used. All characters must be single width. E1512
Each character can be specified as hex:
set listchars=eol:\\x24
set listchars=eol:\\u21b5
set listchars=eol:\\U000021b5
Note that a double backslash is used. The number of hex characters must be exactly 2 for \\x, 4 for \\u and 8 for \\U.
Examples:
set lcs=tab:>-,trail:-
set lcs=tab:>-,eol:<,nbsp:%
set lcs=extends:>,precedes:<
hl-NonText highlighting will be used for "eol", "extends" and "precedes". hl-Whitespace for "nbsp", "space", "tab", "multispace", "lead" and "trail".
'loadplugins' 'lpl' 'noloadplugins' 'nolpl' 'loadplugins' 'lpl' boolean (default on) global When on the plugin scripts are loaded when starting up load-plugins. This option can be reset in your vimrc file to disable the loading of plugins. Note that using the "-u NONE" and "--noplugin" command line arguments reset this option. -u --noplugin
'magic' 'nomagic' 'magic' boolean (default on) global Changes the special characters that can be used in search patterns. See pattern. WARNING: Switching this option off most likely breaks plugins! That is because many patterns assume it's on and will fail when it's off. Only switch it off when working with old Vi scripts. In any other situation write patterns that work when 'magic' is on. Include "\M" when you want to /\M.
'makeef' 'mef' 'makeef' 'mef' string (default "") global Name of the errorfile for the :make command (see :make_makeprg) and the :grep command. When it is empty, an internally generated temp file will be used. When "##" is included, it is replaced by a number to make the name unique. This makes sure that the ":make" command doesn't overwrite an existing file. NOT used for the ":cf" command. See 'errorfile' for that. Environment variables are expanded :set_env. See option-backslash about including spaces and backslashes. This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'makeencoding' 'menc' 'makeencoding' 'menc' string (default "") global or local to buffer global-local Encoding used for reading the output of external commands. When empty, encoding is not converted. This is used for :make, :lmake, :grep, :lgrep, :grepadd, :lgrepadd, :cfile, :cgetfile, :caddfile, :lfile, :lgetfile, and :laddfile.
This would be mostly useful when you use MS-Windows. If iconv is enabled, setting 'makeencoding' to "char" has the same effect as setting to the system locale encoding. Example:
set makeencoding=char        " system locale is used
'makeprg' 'mp' 'makeprg' 'mp' string (default "make") global or local to buffer global-local Program to use for the ":make" command. See :make_makeprg. This option may contain '%' and '#' characters (see :_% and :_#), which are expanded to the current and alternate file name. Use ::S to escape file names in case they contain special characters. Environment variables are expanded :set_env. See option-backslash about including spaces and backslashes. Note that a '|' must be escaped twice: once for ":set" and once for the interpretation of a command. When you use a filter called "myfilter" do it like this:
set makeprg=gmake\ \\\|\ myfilter
The placeholder "$*" can be given (even multiple times) to specify where the arguments will be included, for example:
set makeprg=latex\ \\\\nonstopmode\ \\\\input\\{$*}
This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'matchpairs' 'mps' 'matchpairs' 'mps' string (default "(:),{:},[:]") local to buffer Characters that form pairs. The % command jumps from one to the other. Only character pairs are allowed that are different, thus you cannot jump between two double quotes. The characters must be separated by a colon. The pairs must be separated by a comma. Example for including '<' and '>' (for HTML):
set mps+=<:>
A more exotic example, to jump between the '=' and ';' in an assignment, useful for languages like C and Java:
au FileType c,cpp,java set mps+==:;
For a more advanced way of using "%", see the matchit.vim plugin in the $VIMRUNTIME/plugin directory. add-local-help
'matchtime' 'mat' 'matchtime' 'mat' number (default 5) global Tenths of a second to show the matching paren, when 'showmatch' is set. Note that this is not in milliseconds, like other options that set a time. This is to be compatible with Nvi.
'maxfuncdepth' 'mfd' 'maxfuncdepth' 'mfd' number (default 100) global Maximum depth of function calls for user functions. This normally catches endless recursion. When using a recursive function with more depth, set 'maxfuncdepth' to a bigger number. But this will use more memory, there is the danger of failing when memory is exhausted. Increasing this limit above 200 also changes the maximum for Ex command recursion, see E169. See also :function. Also used for maximum depth of callback functions.
'maxmapdepth' 'mmd' E223 'maxmapdepth' 'mmd' number (default 1000) global Maximum number of times a mapping is done without resulting in a character to be used. This normally catches endless mappings, like ":map x y" with ":map y x". It still does not catch ":map g wg", because the 'w' is used before the next mapping is done. See also key-mapping.
'maxmempattern' 'mmp' 'maxmempattern' 'mmp' number (default 1000) global Maximum amount of memory (in Kbyte) to use for pattern matching. The maximum value is about 2000000. Use this to work without a limit. E363
When Vim runs into the limit it gives an error message and mostly behaves like CTRL-C was typed. Running into the limit often means that the pattern is very inefficient or too complex. This may already happen with the pattern "\(.\)*" on a very long line. ".*" works much better. Might also happen on redraw, when syntax rules try to match a complex text structure. Vim may run out of memory before hitting the 'maxmempattern' limit, in which case you get an "Out of memory" error instead.
'menuitems' 'mis' 'menuitems' 'mis' number (default 25) global Maximum number of items to use in a menu. Used for menus that are generated from a list of items, e.g., the Buffers menu. Changing this option has no direct effect, the menu must be refreshed first.
'mkspellmem' 'msm' 'mkspellmem' 'msm' string (default "460000,2000,500") global Parameters for :mkspell. This tunes when to start compressing the word tree. Compression can be slow when there are many words, but it's needed to avoid running out of memory. The amount of memory used per word depends very much on how similar the words are, that's why this tuning is complicated.
There are three numbers, separated by commas:
{start},{inc},{added}
For most languages the uncompressed word tree fits in memory. {start} gives the amount of memory in Kbyte that can be used before any compression is done. It should be a bit smaller than the amount of memory that is available to Vim.
When going over the {start} limit the {inc} number specifies the amount of memory in Kbyte that can be allocated before another compression is done. A low number means compression is done after less words are added, which is slow. A high number means more memory will be allocated.
After doing compression, {added} times 1024 words can be added before the {inc} limit is ignored and compression is done when any extra amount of memory is needed. A low number means there is a smaller chance of hitting the {inc} limit, less memory is used but it's slower.
The languages for which these numbers are important are Italian and Hungarian. The default works for when you have about 512 Mbyte. If you have 1 Gbyte you could use:
set mkspellmem=900000,3000,800
If you have less than 512 Mbyte :mkspell may fail for some languages, no matter what you set 'mkspellmem' to.
This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'modeline' 'ml' 'nomodeline' 'noml' 'modeline' 'ml' boolean (default on (off for root)) local to buffer If 'modeline' is on 'modelines' gives the number of lines that is checked for set commands. If 'modeline' is off or 'modelines' is zero no lines are checked. See modeline.
'modelineexpr' 'mle' 'nomodelineexpr' 'nomle' 'modelineexpr' 'mle' boolean (default off) global When on allow some options that are an expression to be set in the modeline. Check the option for whether it is affected by 'modelineexpr'. Also see modeline. This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'modelines' 'mls' 'modelines' 'mls' number (default 5) global If 'modeline' is on 'modelines' gives the number of lines that is checked for set commands. If 'modeline' is off or 'modelines' is zero no lines are checked. See modeline.
'modifiable' 'ma' 'nomodifiable' 'noma' E21 'modifiable' 'ma' boolean (default on) local to buffer When off the buffer contents cannot be changed. The 'fileformat' and 'fileencoding' options also can't be changed. Can be reset on startup with the -M command line argument.
'modified' 'mod' 'nomodified' 'nomod' 'modified' 'mod' boolean (default off) local to buffer local-noglobal When on, the buffer is considered to be modified. This option is set when: 1. A change was made to the text since it was last written. Using the undo command to go back to the original text will reset the option. But undoing changes that were made before writing the buffer will set the option again, since the text is different from when it was written. 2. 'fileformat' or 'fileencoding' is different from its original value. The original value is set when the buffer is read or written. A ":set nomodified" command also resets the original values to the current values and the 'modified' option will be reset. Similarly for 'eol' and 'bomb'. This option is not set when a change is made to the buffer as the result of a BufNewFile, BufRead/BufReadPost, BufWritePost, FileAppendPost or VimLeave autocommand event. See gzip-example for an explanation. When 'buftype' is "nowrite" or "nofile" this option may be set, but will be ignored. Note that the text may actually be the same, e.g. 'modified' is set when using "rA" on an "A".
'more' 'nomore' 'more' boolean (default on) global When on, listings pause when the whole screen is filled. You will get the more-prompt. When this option is off there are no pauses, the listing continues until finished.
'mouse'
'mouse' string (default "nvi") global Enables mouse support. For example, to enable the mouse in Normal mode and Visual mode:
set mouse=nv
To temporarily disable mouse support, hold the shift key while using the mouse.
Mouse support can be enabled for different modes: n Normal mode v Visual mode i Insert mode c Command-line mode h all previous modes when editing a help file a all previous modes r for hit-enter and more-prompt prompt
Left-click anywhere in a text buffer to place the cursor there. This works with operators too, e.g. type d then left-click to delete text from the current cursor position to the position where you clicked.
Drag the status-line or vertical separator of a window to resize it.
If enabled for "v" (Visual mode) then double-click selects word-wise, triple-click makes it line-wise, and quadruple-click makes it rectangular block-wise.
For scrolling with a mouse wheel see scroll-mouse-wheel.
Note: When enabling the mouse in a terminal, copy/paste will use the "* register if possible. See also 'clipboard'.
Related options: 'mousefocus' window focus follows mouse pointer 'mousemodel' what mouse button does which action 'mousehide' hide mouse pointer while typing text 'selectmode' whether to start Select mode or Visual mode
'mousefocus' 'mousef' 'nomousefocus' 'nomousef' 'mousefocus' 'mousef' boolean (default off) global The window that the mouse pointer is on is automatically activated. When changing the window layout or window focus in another way, the mouse pointer is moved to the window with keyboard focus. Off is the default because it makes using the pull down menus a little goofy, as a pointer transit may activate a window unintentionally.
'mousehide' 'mh' 'nomousehide' 'nomh' 'mousehide' 'mh' boolean (default on) global only in the GUI When on, the mouse pointer is hidden when characters are typed. The mouse pointer is restored when the mouse is moved.
'mousemodel' 'mousem' 'mousemodel' 'mousem' string (default "popup_setpos") global Sets the model to use for the mouse. The name mostly specifies what the right mouse button is used for: extend Right mouse button extends a selection. This works like in an xterm. popup Right mouse button pops up a menu. The shifted left mouse button extends a selection. This works like with Microsoft Windows. popup_setpos Like "popup", but the cursor will be moved to the position where the mouse was clicked, and thus the selected operation will act upon the clicked object. If clicking inside a selection, that selection will be acted upon, i.e. no cursor move. This implies of course, that right clicking outside a selection will end Visual mode. Overview of what button does what for each model:
mouse extend popup(_setpos)
left click place cursor place cursor left drag start selection start selection shift-left search word extend selection right click extend selection popup menu (place cursor) right drag extend selection - middle click paste paste
In the "popup" model the right mouse button produces a pop-up menu. Nvim creates a default popup-menu but you can redefine it.
Note that you can further refine the meaning of buttons with mappings. See mouse-overview. But mappings are NOT used for modeless selection.
Example:
map <S-LeftMouse>     <RightMouse>
map <S-LeftDrag>      <RightDrag>
map <S-LeftRelease>   <RightRelease>
map <2-S-LeftMouse>   <2-RightMouse>
map <2-S-LeftDrag>    <2-RightDrag>
map <2-S-LeftRelease> <2-RightRelease>
map <3-S-LeftMouse>   <3-RightMouse>
map <3-S-LeftDrag>    <3-RightDrag>
map <3-S-LeftRelease> <3-RightRelease>
map <4-S-LeftMouse>   <4-RightMouse>
map <4-S-LeftDrag>    <4-RightDrag>
map <4-S-LeftRelease> <4-RightRelease>
Mouse commands requiring the CTRL modifier can be simulated by typing the "g" key before using the mouse: "g<LeftMouse>" is "<C-LeftMouse> (jump to tag under mouse click) "g<RightMouse>" is "<C-RightMouse> ("CTRL-T")
'mousemoveevent' 'mousemev' 'nomousemoveevent' 'nomousemev' 'mousemoveevent' 'mousemev' boolean (default off) global When on, mouse move events are delivered to the input queue and are available for mapping. The default, off, avoids the mouse movement overhead except when needed. Warning: Setting this option can make pending mappings to be aborted when the mouse is moved.
'mousescroll' E5080 'mousescroll' string (default "ver:3,hor:6") global This option controls the number of lines / columns to scroll by when scrolling with a mouse wheel (scroll-mouse-wheel). The option is a comma-separated list. Each part consists of a direction and a count as follows: direction:count,direction:count Direction is one of either "hor" or "ver". "hor" controls horizontal scrolling and "ver" controls vertical scrolling. Count sets the amount to scroll by for the given direction, it should be a non negative integer. Each direction should be set at most once. If a direction is omitted, a default value is used (6 for horizontal scrolling and 3 for vertical scrolling). You can disable mouse scrolling by using a count of 0.
Example:
set mousescroll=ver:5,hor:2
Will make Nvim scroll 5 lines at a time when scrolling vertically, and scroll 2 columns at a time when scrolling horizontally.
'mouseshape' 'mouses' E547 'mouseshape' 'mouses' string (default "i:beam,r:beam,s:updown,sd:cross, m:no,ml:up-arrow,v:rightup-arrow") global This option tells Vim what the mouse pointer should look like in different modes. The option is a comma-separated list of parts, much like used for 'guicursor'. Each part consist of a mode/location-list and an argument-list: mode-list:shape,mode-list:shape,.. The mode-list is a dash separated list of these modes/locations:
In a normal window:
n Normal mode v Visual mode ve Visual mode with 'selection' "exclusive" (same as 'v', if not specified) o Operator-pending mode i Insert mode r Replace mode
Others:
c appending to the command-line ci inserting in the command-line cr replacing in the command-line m at the 'Hit ENTER' or 'More' prompts ml idem, but cursor in the last line e any mode, pointer below last window s any mode, pointer on a status line sd any mode, while dragging a status line vs any mode, pointer on a vertical separator line vd any mode, while dragging a vertical separator line a everywhere
The shape is one of the following:
avail name looks like
w x arrow Normal mouse pointer w x blank no pointer at all (use with care!) w x beam I-beam w x updown up-down sizing arrows w x leftright left-right sizing arrows w x busy The system's usual busy pointer w x no The system's usual "no input" pointer x udsizing indicates up-down resizing x lrsizing indicates left-right resizing x crosshair like a big thin + x hand1 black hand x hand2 white hand x pencil what you write with x question big ? x rightup-arrow arrow pointing right-up w x up-arrow arrow pointing up x <number> any X11 pointer number (see X11/cursorfont.h)
The "avail" column contains a 'w' if the shape is available for Win32, x for X11. Any modes not specified or shapes not available use the normal mouse pointer.
Example:
set mouseshape=s:udsizing,m:no
will make the mouse turn to a sizing arrow over the status lines and indicate no input when the hit-enter prompt is displayed (since clicking the mouse has no effect in this state.)
'mousetime' 'mouset' 'mousetime' 'mouset' number (default 500) global Defines the maximum time in msec between two mouse clicks for the second click to be recognized as a multi click.
'nrformats' 'nf' 'nrformats' 'nf' string (default "bin,hex") local to buffer This defines what bases Vim will consider for numbers when using the CTRL-A and CTRL-X commands for adding to and subtracting from a number respectively; see CTRL-A for more info on these commands. alpha If included, single alphabetical characters will be incremented or decremented. This is useful for a list with a letter index a), b), etc. octal-nrformats
octal If included, numbers that start with a zero will be considered to be octal. Example: Using CTRL-A on "007" results in "010". hex If included, numbers starting with "0x" or "0X" will be considered to be hexadecimal. Example: Using CTRL-X on "0x100" results in "0x0ff". bin If included, numbers starting with "0b" or "0B" will be considered to be binary. Example: Using CTRL-X on "0b1000" subtracts one, resulting in "0b0111". unsigned If included, numbers are recognized as unsigned. Thus a leading dash or negative sign won't be considered as part of the number. Examples: Using CTRL-X on "2020" in "9-2020" results in "9-2019" (without "unsigned" it would become "9-2021"). Using CTRL-A on "2020" in "9-2020" results in "9-2021" (without "unsigned" it would become "9-2019"). Using CTRL-X on "0" or CTRL-A on "18446744073709551615" (2^64 - 1) has no effect, overflow is prevented. blank If included, treat numbers as signed or unsigned based on preceding whitespace. If a number with a leading dash has its dash immediately preceded by a non-whitespace character (i.e., not a tab or a " "), the negative sign won't be considered as part of the number. For example: Using CTRL-A on "14" in "Carbon-14" results in "Carbon-15" (without "blank" it would become "Carbon-13"). Using CTRL-X on "8" in "Carbon -8" results in "Carbon -9" (because -8 is preceded by whitespace. If "unsigned" was set, it would result in "Carbon -7"). If this format is included, overflow is prevented as if "unsigned" were set. If both this format and "unsigned" are included, "unsigned" will take precedence.
Numbers which simply begin with a digit in the range 1-9 are always considered decimal. This also happens for numbers that are not recognized as octal or hex.
'number' 'nu' 'nonumber' 'nonu' 'number' 'nu' boolean (default off) local to window Print the line number in front of each line. When the 'n' option is excluded from 'cpoptions' a wrapped line will not use the column of line numbers. Use the 'numberwidth' option to adjust the room for the line number. When a long, wrapped line doesn't start with the first character, '-' characters are put before the number. For highlighting see hl-LineNr, hl-CursorLineNr, and the :sign-define "numhl" argument. number_relativenumber
The 'relativenumber' option changes the displayed number to be relative to the cursor. Together with 'number' there are these four combinations (cursor in line 3):
'nonu' 'nu' 'nonu' 'nu' 'nornu' 'nornu' 'rnu' 'rnu' 
|apple          |  1 apple      |  2 apple      |  2 apple
|pear           |  2 pear       |  1 pear       |  1 pear
|nobody         |  3 nobody     |  0 nobody     |3   nobody
|there          |  4 there      |  1 there      |  1 there
'numberwidth' 'nuw' 'numberwidth' 'nuw' number (default 4) local to window Minimal number of columns to use for the line number. Only relevant when the 'number' or 'relativenumber' option is set or printing lines with a line number. Since one space is always between the number and the text, there is one less character for the number itself. The value is the minimum width. A bigger width is used when needed to fit the highest line number in the buffer respectively the number of rows in the window, depending on whether 'number' or 'relativenumber' is set. Thus with the Vim default of 4 there is room for a line number up to 999. When the buffer has 1000 lines five columns will be used. The minimum value is 1, the maximum value is 20.
'omnifunc' 'ofu' 'omnifunc' 'ofu' string (default "") local to buffer This option specifies a function to be used for Insert mode omni completion with CTRL-X CTRL-O. i_CTRL-X_CTRL-O See complete-functions for an explanation of how the function is invoked and what it should return. The value can be the name of a function, a lambda or a Funcref. See option-value-function for more information. This option is usually set by a filetype plugin: :filetype-plugin-on This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'opendevice' 'odev' 'noopendevice' 'noodev' 'opendevice' 'odev' boolean (default off) global only for Windows Enable reading and writing from devices. This may get Vim stuck on a device that can be opened but doesn't actually do the I/O. Therefore it is off by default. Note that on Windows editing "aux.h", "lpt1.txt" and the like also result in editing a device.
'operatorfunc' 'opfunc' 'operatorfunc' 'opfunc' string (default "") global This option specifies a function to be called by the g@ operator. See :map-operator for more info and an example. The value can be the name of a function, a lambda or a Funcref. See option-value-function for more information.
This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'packpath' 'pp' 'packpath' 'pp' string (default see 'runtimepath') global Directories used to find packages. See packages and packages-runtimepath. This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'paragraphs' 'para' 'paragraphs' 'para' string (default "IPLPPPQPP TPHPLIPpLpItpplpipbp") global Specifies the nroff macros that separate paragraphs. These are pairs of two letters (see object-motions).
'patchexpr' 'pex' 'patchexpr' 'pex' string (default "") global Expression which is evaluated to apply a patch to a file and generate the resulting new version of the file. See diff-patchexpr. This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'patchmode' 'pm' E205 E206 'patchmode' 'pm' string (default "") global When non-empty the oldest version of a file is kept. This can be used to keep the original version of a file if you are changing files in a source distribution. Only the first time that a file is written a copy of the original file will be kept. The name of the copy is the name of the original file with the string in the 'patchmode' option appended. This option should start with a dot. Use a string like ".orig" or ".org". 'backupdir' must not be empty for this to work (Detail: The backup file is renamed to the patchmode file after the new file has been successfully written, that's why it must be possible to write a backup file). If there was no file to be backed up, an empty file is created. When the 'backupskip' pattern matches, a patchmode file is not made. Using 'patchmode' for compressed files appends the extension at the end (e.g., "file.gz.orig"), thus the resulting name isn't always recognized as a compressed file. Only normal file name characters can be used, /\*?[|<> are illegal.
'path' 'pa' E343 E345 E347 E854 'path' 'pa' string (default ".,,") global or local to buffer global-local This is a list of directories which will be searched when using the gf, [f, ]f, ^Wf, :find, :sfind, :tabfind and other commands, provided that the file being searched for has a relative path (not starting with "/", "./" or "../"). The directories in the 'path' option may be relative or absolute.
Use commas to separate directory names: 
set path=.,/usr/local/include,/usr/include
Spaces can also be used to separate directory names. To have a space in a directory name, precede it with an extra backslash, and escape the space:
set path=.,/dir/with\\\ space
To include a comma in a directory name precede it with an extra backslash:
set path=.,/dir/with\\,comma
To search relative to the directory of the current file, use: 
set path=.
To search in the current directory use an empty string between two commas:
set path=,,
A directory name may end in a ':' or '/'.
Environment variables are expanded :set_env.
When using netrw.vim URLs can be used. For example, adding "https://www.vim.org" will make ":find index.html" work.
Search upwards and downwards in a directory tree using "*", "**" and ";". See file-searching for info and syntax.
Careful with '\' characters, type two to get one in the option: 
set path=.,c:\\include
Or just use '/' instead:
set path=.,c:/include
Don't forget "." or files won't even be found in the same directory as the file! The maximum length is limited. How much depends on the system, mostly it is something like 256 or 1024 characters. You can check if all the include files are found, using the value of 'path', see :checkpath. The use of :set+= and :set-= is preferred when adding or removing directories from the list. This avoids problems when a future version uses another default. To remove the current directory use:
set path-=
To add the current directory use:
set path+=
To use an environment variable, you probably need to replace the separator. Here is an example to append $INCL, in which directory names are separated with a semicolon:
let &path = &path .. "," .. substitute($INCL, ';', ',', 'g')
Replace the ';' with a ':' or whatever separator is used. Note that this doesn't work when $INCL contains a comma or white space.
'preserveindent' 'pi' 'nopreserveindent' 'nopi' 'preserveindent' 'pi' boolean (default off) local to buffer When changing the indent of the current line, preserve as much of the indent structure as possible. Normally the indent is replaced by a series of tabs followed by spaces as required (unless 'expandtab' is enabled, in which case only spaces are used). Enabling this option means the indent will preserve as many existing characters as possible for indenting, and only add additional tabs or spaces as required. 'expandtab' does not apply to the preserved white space, a Tab remains a Tab. NOTE: When using ">>" multiple times the resulting indent is a mix of tabs and spaces. You might not like this. Also see 'copyindent'. Use :retab to clean up white space.
'previewheight' 'pvh' 'previewheight' 'pvh' number (default 12) global Default height for a preview window. Used for :ptag and associated commands. Used for CTRL-W_} when no count is given.
'previewwindow' 'pvw' 'nopreviewwindow' 'nopvw' E590 'previewwindow' 'pvw' boolean (default off) local to window local-noglobal Identifies the preview window. Only one window can have this option set. It's normally not set directly, but by using one of the commands :ptag, :pedit, etc.
'pumblend' 'pb' 'pumblend' 'pb' number (default 0) global Enables pseudo-transparency for the popup-menu. Valid values are in the range of 0 for fully opaque popupmenu (disabled) to 100 for fully transparent background. Values between 0-30 are typically most useful.
It is possible to override the level for individual highlights within the popupmenu using highlight-blend. For instance, to enable transparency but force the current selected element to be fully opaque:
set pumblend=15
hi PmenuSel blend=0
UI-dependent. Works best with RGB colors. 'termguicolors'
'pumheight' 'ph' 'pumheight' 'ph' number (default 0) global Maximum number of items to show in the popup menu (ins-completion-menu). Zero means "use available screen space".
'pumwidth' 'pw' 'pumwidth' 'pw' number (default 15) global Minimum width for the popup menu (ins-completion-menu). If the cursor column + 'pumwidth' exceeds screen width, the popup menu is nudged to fit on the screen.
'pyxversion' 'pyx' 'pyxversion' 'pyx' number (default 3) global Specifies the python version used for pyx* functions and commands python_x. As only Python 3 is supported, this always has the value 3. Setting any other value is an error.
This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'quickfixtextfunc' 'qftf' 'quickfixtextfunc' 'qftf' string (default "") global This option specifies a function to be used to get the text to display in the quickfix and location list windows. This can be used to customize the information displayed in the quickfix or location window for each entry in the corresponding quickfix or location list. See quickfix-window-function for an explanation of how to write the function and an example. The value can be the name of a function, a lambda or a Funcref. See option-value-function for more information.
This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'quoteescape' 'qe' 'quoteescape' 'qe' string (default "\") local to buffer The characters that are used to escape quotes in a string. Used for objects like a', a" and a` a'. When one of the characters in this option is found inside a string, the following character will be skipped. The default value makes the text "foo\"bar\\" considered to be one string.
'readonly' 'ro' 'noreadonly' 'noro' 'readonly' 'ro' boolean (default off) local to buffer local-noglobal If on, writes fail unless you use a '!'. Protects you from accidentally overwriting a file. Default on when Vim is started in read-only mode ("vim -R") or when the executable is called "view". When using ":w!" the 'readonly' option is reset for the current buffer, unless the 'Z' flag is in 'cpoptions'. When using the ":view" command the 'readonly' option is set for the newly edited buffer. See 'modifiable' for disallowing changes to the buffer.
'redrawdebug' 'rdb' 'redrawdebug' 'rdb' string (default "") global Flags to change the way redrawing works, for debugging purposes. Most useful with 'writedelay' set to some reasonable value. Supports the following flags: compositor Indicate each redraw event handled by the compositor by briefly flashing the redrawn regions in colors indicating the redraw type. These are the highlight groups used (and their default colors): RedrawDebugNormal gui=reverse normal redraw passed through RedrawDebugClear guibg=Yellow clear event passed through RedrawDebugComposed guibg=Green redraw event modified by the compositor (due to overlapping grids, etc) RedrawDebugRecompose guibg=Red redraw generated by the compositor itself, due to a grid being moved or deleted. line introduce a delay after each line drawn on the screen. When using the TUI or another single-grid UI, "compositor" gives more information and should be preferred (every line is processed as a separate event by the compositor) flush introduce a delay after each "flush" event. nothrottle Turn off throttling of the message grid. This is an optimization that joins many small scrolls to one larger scroll when drawing the message area (with 'display' msgsep flag active). invalid Enable stricter checking (abort) of inconsistencies of the internal screen state. This is mostly useful when running nvim inside a debugger (and the test suite). nodelta Send all internally redrawn cells to the UI, even if they are unchanged from the already displayed state.
'redrawtime' 'rdt' 'redrawtime' 'rdt' number (default 2000) global Time in milliseconds for redrawing the display. Applies to 'hlsearch', 'inccommand', :match highlighting and syntax highlighting. When redrawing takes more than this many milliseconds no further matches will be highlighted. For syntax highlighting the time applies per window. When over the limit syntax highlighting is disabled until CTRL-L is used. This is used to avoid that Vim hangs when using a very complicated pattern.
'regexpengine' 're' 'regexpengine' 're' number (default 0) global This selects the default regexp engine. two-engines The possible values are: 0 automatic selection 1 old engine 2 NFA engine Note that when using the NFA engine and the pattern contains something that is not supported the pattern will not match. This is only useful for debugging the regexp engine. Using automatic selection enables Vim to switch the engine, if the default engine becomes too costly. E.g., when the NFA engine uses too many states. This should prevent Vim from hanging on a combination of a complex pattern with long text.
'relativenumber' 'rnu' 'norelativenumber' 'nornu' 'relativenumber' 'rnu' boolean (default off) local to window Show the line number relative to the line with the cursor in front of each line. Relative line numbers help you use the count you can precede some vertical motion commands (e.g. j k + -) with, without having to calculate it yourself. Especially useful in combination with other commands (e.g. y d c < > gq gw =). When the 'n' option is excluded from 'cpoptions' a wrapped line will not use the column of line numbers. The 'numberwidth' option can be used to set the room used for the line number. When a long, wrapped line doesn't start with the first character, '-' characters are put before the number. See hl-LineNr and hl-CursorLineNr for the highlighting used for the number.
The number in front of the cursor line also depends on the value of 'number', see number_relativenumber for all combinations of the two options.
'report'
'report' number (default 2) global Threshold for reporting number of lines changed. When the number of changed lines is more than 'report' a message will be given for most ":" commands. If you want it always, set 'report' to 0. For the ":substitute" command the number of substitutions is used instead of the number of lines.
'revins' 'ri' 'norevins' 'nori' 'revins' 'ri' boolean (default off) global Inserting characters in Insert mode will work backwards. See "typing backwards" ins-reverse. This option can be toggled with the CTRL-_ command in Insert mode, when 'allowrevins' is set.
'rightleft' 'rl' 'norightleft' 'norl' 'rightleft' 'rl' boolean (default off) local to window When on, display orientation becomes right-to-left, i.e., characters that are stored in the file appear from the right to the left. Using this option, it is possible to edit files for languages that are written from the right to the left such as Hebrew and Arabic. This option is per window, so it is possible to edit mixed files simultaneously, or to view the same file in both ways (this is useful whenever you have a mixed text file with both right-to-left and left-to-right strings so that both sets are displayed properly in different windows). Also see rileft.txt.
'rightleftcmd' 'rlc' 'rightleftcmd' 'rlc' string (default "search") local to window Each word in this option enables the command line editing to work in right-to-left mode for a group of commands:
search "/" and "?" commands
This is useful for languages such as Hebrew, Arabic and Farsi. The 'rightleft' option must be set for 'rightleftcmd' to take effect.
'ruler' 'ru' 'noruler' 'noru' 'ruler' 'ru' boolean (default on) global Show the line and column number of the cursor position, separated by a comma. When there is room, the relative position of the displayed text in the file is shown on the far right: Top first line is visible Bot last line is visible All first and last line are visible 45% relative position in the file If 'rulerformat' is set, it will determine the contents of the ruler. Each window has its own ruler. If a window has a status line, the ruler is shown there. If a window doesn't have a status line and 'cmdheight' is zero, the ruler is not shown. Otherwise it is shown in the last line of the screen. If the statusline is given by 'statusline' (i.e. not empty), this option takes precedence over 'ruler' and 'rulerformat'. If the number of characters displayed is different from the number of bytes in the text (e.g., for a TAB or a multibyte character), both the text column (byte number) and the screen column are shown, separated with a dash. For an empty line "0-1" is shown. For an empty buffer the line number will also be zero: "0,0-1". If you don't want to see the ruler all the time but want to know where you are, use "g CTRL-G" g_CTRL-G.
'rulerformat' 'ruf' 'rulerformat' 'ruf' string (default "") global When this option is not empty, it determines the content of the ruler string, as displayed for the 'ruler' option. The format of this option is like that of 'statusline'. This option cannot be set in a modeline when 'modelineexpr' is off.
The default ruler width is 17 characters. To make the ruler 15 characters wide, put "%15(" at the start and "%)" at the end. Example:
set rulerformat=%15(%c%V\ %p%%%)
'runtimepath' 'rtp' vimfiles 'runtimepath' 'rtp' string (default "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nvim, $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS[1]/nvim, $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS[2]/nvim, … $XDG_DATA_HOME/nvim[-data]/site, $XDG_DATA_DIRS[1]/nvim/site, $XDG_DATA_DIRS[2]/nvim/site, … $VIMRUNTIME, … $XDG_DATA_DIRS[2]/nvim/site/after, $XDG_DATA_DIRS[1]/nvim/site/after, $XDG_DATA_HOME/nvim[-data]/site/after, … $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS[2]/nvim/after, $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS[1]/nvim/after, $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nvim/after") global List of directories to be searched for these runtime files: filetype.lua filetypes new-filetype autoload/ automatically loaded scripts autoload-functions colors/ color scheme files :colorscheme compiler/ compiler files :compiler doc/ documentation write-local-help ftplugin/ filetype plugins write-filetype-plugin indent/ indent scripts indent-expression keymap/ key mapping files mbyte-keymap lang/ menu translations :menutrans lua/ Lua plugins menu.vim GUI menus menu.vim pack/ packages :packadd parser/ treesitter syntax parsers plugin/ plugin scripts write-plugin queries/ treesitter queries rplugin/ remote-plugin scripts spell/ spell checking files spell syntax/ syntax files mysyntaxfile tutor/ tutorial files :Tutor
And any other file searched for with the :runtime command.
Defaults are setup to search these locations: 1. Your home directory, for personal preferences. Given by stdpath("config"). $XDG_CONFIG_HOME 2. Directories which must contain configuration files according to xdg ($XDG_CONFIG_DIRS, defaults to /etc/xdg). This also contains preferences from system administrator. 3. Data home directory, for plugins installed by user. Given by stdpath("data")/site. $XDG_DATA_HOME 4. nvim/site subdirectories for each directory in $XDG_DATA_DIRS. This is for plugins which were installed by system administrator, but are not part of the Nvim distribution. XDG_DATA_DIRS defaults to /usr/local/share/:/usr/share/, so system administrators are expected to install site plugins to /usr/share/nvim/site. 5. Session state directory, for state data such as swap, backupdir, viewdir, undodir, etc. Given by stdpath("state"). $XDG_STATE_HOME 6. $VIMRUNTIME, for files distributed with Nvim. after-directory
7, 8, 9, 10. In after/ subdirectories of 1, 2, 3 and 4, with reverse ordering. This is for preferences to overrule or add to the distributed defaults or system-wide settings (rarely needed).
packages-runtimepath
"start" packages will also be searched (runtime-search-path) for runtime files after these, though such packages are not explicitly reported in &runtimepath. But "opt" packages are explicitly added to &runtimepath by :packadd.
Note that, unlike 'path', no wildcards like "**" are allowed. Normal wildcards are allowed, but can significantly slow down searching for runtime files. For speed, use as few items as possible and avoid wildcards. See :runtime. Example:
set runtimepath=~/vimruntime,/mygroup/vim,$VIMRUNTIME
This will use the directory "~/vimruntime" first (containing your personal Nvim runtime files), then "/mygroup/vim", and finally "$VIMRUNTIME" (the default runtime files). You can put a directory before $VIMRUNTIME to find files which replace distributed runtime files. You can put a directory after $VIMRUNTIME to find files which add to distributed runtime files.
With --clean the home directory entries are not included.
'scroll' 'scr' 'scroll' 'scr' number (default half the window height) local to window local-noglobal Number of lines to scroll with CTRL-U and CTRL-D commands. Will be set to half the number of lines in the window when the window size changes. This may happen when enabling the status-line or 'tabline' option after setting the 'scroll' option. If you give a count to the CTRL-U or CTRL-D command it will be used as the new value for 'scroll'. Reset to half the window height with ":set scroll=0".
'scrollback' 'scbk' 'scrollback' 'scbk' number (default 10000) local to buffer Maximum number of lines kept beyond the visible screen. Lines at the top are deleted if new lines exceed this limit. Minimum is 1, maximum is 100000. Only in terminal buffers.
Note: Lines that are not visible and kept in scrollback are not reflown when the terminal buffer is resized horizontally.
'scrollbind' 'scb' 'noscrollbind' 'noscb' 'scrollbind' 'scb' boolean (default off) local to window See also scroll-binding. When this option is set, scrolling the current window also scrolls other scrollbind windows (windows that also have this option set). This option is useful for viewing the differences between two versions of a file, see 'diff'. See 'scrollopt' for options that determine how this option should be interpreted. This option is mostly reset when splitting a window to edit another file. This means that ":split | edit file" results in two windows with scroll-binding, but ":split file" does not.
'scrolljump' 'sj' 'scrolljump' 'sj' number (default 1) global Minimal number of lines to scroll when the cursor gets off the screen (e.g., with "j"). Not used for scroll commands (e.g., CTRL-E, CTRL-D). Useful if your terminal scrolls very slowly. When set to a negative number from -1 to -100 this is used as the percentage of the window height. Thus -50 scrolls half the window height.
'scrolloff' 'so' 'scrolloff' 'so' number (default 0) global or local to window global-local Minimal number of screen lines to keep above and below the cursor. This will make some context visible around where you are working. If you set it to a very large value (999) the cursor line will always be in the middle of the window (except at the start or end of the file or when long lines wrap). After using the local value, go back the global value with one of these two:
setlocal scrolloff<
setlocal scrolloff=-1
For scrolling horizontally see 'sidescrolloff'.
'scrollopt' 'sbo' 'scrollopt' 'sbo' string (default "ver,jump") global This is a comma-separated list of words that specifies how 'scrollbind' windows should behave. 'sbo' stands for ScrollBind Options. The following words are available: ver Bind vertical scrolling for 'scrollbind' windows hor Bind horizontal scrolling for 'scrollbind' windows jump Applies to the offset between two windows for vertical scrolling. This offset is the difference in the first displayed line of the bound windows. When moving around in a window, another 'scrollbind' window may reach a position before the start or after the end of the buffer. The offset is not changed though, when moving back the 'scrollbind' window will try to scroll to the desired position when possible. When now making that window the current one, two things can be done with the relative offset: 1. When "jump" is not included, the relative offset is adjusted for the scroll position in the new current window. When going back to the other window, the new relative offset will be used. 2. When "jump" is included, the other windows are scrolled to keep the same relative offset. When going back to the other window, it still uses the same relative offset. Also see scroll-binding. When 'diff' mode is active there always is vertical scroll binding, even when "ver" isn't there.
'sections' 'sect' 'sections' 'sect' string (default "SHNHH HUnhsh") global Specifies the nroff macros that separate sections. These are pairs of two letters (See object-motions). The default makes a section start at the nroff macros ".SH", ".NH", ".H", ".HU", ".nh" and ".sh".
'selection' 'sel' 'selection' 'sel' string (default "inclusive") global This option defines the behavior of the selection. It is only used in Visual and Select mode. Possible values:
value past line inclusive
old no yes inclusive yes yes exclusive yes no "past line" means that the cursor is allowed to be positioned one character past the line. "inclusive" means that the last character of the selection is included in an operation. For example, when "x" is used to delete the selection. When "old" is used and 'virtualedit' allows the cursor to move past the end of line the line break still isn't included. Note that when "exclusive" is used and selecting from the end backwards, you cannot include the last character of a line, when starting in Normal mode and 'virtualedit' empty.
'selectmode' 'slm' 'selectmode' 'slm' string (default "") global This is a comma-separated list of words, which specifies when to start Select mode instead of Visual mode, when a selection is started. Possible values: mouse when using the mouse key when using shifted special keys cmd when using "v", "V" or CTRL-V See Select-mode.
'sessionoptions' 'ssop' 'sessionoptions' 'ssop' string (default "blank,buffers,curdir,folds,help,tabpages,winsize,terminal") global Changes the effect of the :mksession command. It is a comma- separated list of words. Each word enables saving and restoring something:
word save and restore
blank empty windows buffers hidden and unloaded buffers, not just those in windows curdir the current directory folds manually created folds, opened/closed folds and local fold options globals global variables that start with an uppercase letter and contain at least one lowercase letter. Only String and Number types are stored. help the help window localoptions options and mappings local to a window or buffer (not global values for local options) options all options and mappings (also global values for local options) skiprtp exclude 'runtimepath' and 'packpath' from the options resize size of the Vim window: 'lines' and 'columns' sesdir the directory in which the session file is located will become the current directory (useful with projects accessed over a network from different systems) tabpages all tab pages; without this only the current tab page is restored, so that you can make a session for each tab page separately terminal include terminal windows where the command can be restored winpos position of the whole Vim window winsize window sizes slash deprecated Always enabled. Uses "/" in filenames. unix deprecated Always enabled. Uses "\n" line endings.
Don't include both "curdir" and "sesdir". When neither is included filenames are stored as absolute paths. If you leave out "options" many things won't work well after restoring the session.
'shada' 'sd' E526 E527 E528 'shada' 'sd' string (default for Win32: !,'100,<50,s10,h,rA:,rB: others: !,'100,<50,s10,h) global When non-empty, the shada file is read upon startup and written when exiting Vim (see shada-file). The string should be a comma- separated list of parameters, each consisting of a single character identifying the particular parameter, followed by a number or string which specifies the value of that parameter. If a particular character is left out, then the default value is used for that parameter. The following is a list of the identifying characters and the effect of their value.
CHAR VALUE
shada-!
! When included, save and restore global variables that start with an uppercase letter, and don't contain a lowercase letter. Thus "KEEPTHIS and "K_L_M" are stored, but "KeepThis" and "_K_L_M" are not. Nested List and Dict items may not be read back correctly, you end up with an empty item. shada-quote
" Maximum number of lines saved for each register. Old name of the '<' item, with the disadvantage that you need to put a backslash before the ", otherwise it will be recognized as the start of a comment! shada-%
% When included, save and restore the buffer list. If Vim is started with a file name argument, the buffer list is not restored. If Vim is started without a file name argument, the buffer list is restored from the shada file. Quickfix ('buftype'), unlisted ('buflisted'), unnamed and buffers on removable media (shada-r) are not saved. When followed by a number, the number specifies the maximum number of buffers that are stored. Without a number all buffers are stored. shada-'
' Maximum number of previously edited files for which the marks are remembered. This parameter must always be included when 'shada' is non-empty. Including this item also means that the jumplist and the changelist are stored in the shada file. shada-/
/ Maximum number of items in the search pattern history to be saved. If non-zero, then the previous search and substitute patterns are also saved. When not included, the value of 'history' is used. shada-:
: Maximum number of items in the command-line history to be saved. When not included, the value of 'history' is used. shada-<
< Maximum number of lines saved for each register. If zero then registers are not saved. When not included, all lines are saved. '"' is the old name for this item. Also see the 's' item below: limit specified in KiB. shada-@
@ Maximum number of items in the input-line history to be saved. When not included, the value of 'history' is used. shada-c
c Dummy option, kept for compatibility reasons. Has no actual effect: ShaDa always uses UTF-8 and 'encoding' value is fixed to UTF-8 as well. shada-f
f Whether file marks need to be stored. If zero, file marks ('0 to '9, 'A to 'Z) are not stored. When not present or when non-zero, they are all stored. '0 is used for the current cursor position (when exiting or when doing :wshada). shada-h
h Disable the effect of 'hlsearch' when loading the shada file. When not included, it depends on whether ":nohlsearch" has been used since the last search command. shada-n
n Name of the shada file. The name must immediately follow the 'n'. Must be at the end of the option! If the 'shadafile' option is set, that file name overrides the one given here with 'shada'. Environment variables are expanded when opening the file, not when setting the option. shada-r
r Removable media. The argument is a string (up to the next ','). This parameter can be given several times. Each specifies the start of a path for which no marks will be stored. This is to avoid removable media. For Windows you could use "ra:,rb:". You can also use it for temp files, e.g., for Unix: "r/tmp". Case is ignored. shada-s
s Maximum size of an item contents in KiB. If zero then nothing is saved. Unlike Vim this applies to all items, except for the buffer list and header. Full item size is off by three unsigned integers: with s10 maximum item size may be 1 byte (type: 7-bit integer) + 9 bytes (timestamp: up to 64-bit integer) + 3 bytes (item size: up to 16-bit integer because 2^8 < 10240 < 2^16) + 10240 bytes (requested maximum item contents size) = 10253 bytes.
Example:
set shada='50,<1000,s100,:0,n~/nvim/shada
'50 Marks will be remembered for the last 50 files you edited. <1000 Contents of registers (up to 1000 lines each) will be remembered. s100 Items with contents occupying more then 100 KiB are skipped. :0 Command-line history will not be saved. n~/nvim/shada The name of the file to use is "~/nvim/shada". no / Since '/' is not specified, the default will be used, that is, save all of the search history, and also the previous search and substitute patterns. no % The buffer list will not be saved nor read back. no h 'hlsearch' highlighting will be restored.
When setting 'shada' from an empty value you can use :rshada to load the contents of the file, this is not done automatically.
This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'shadafile' 'sdf' 'shadafile' 'sdf' string (default "") global When non-empty, overrides the file name used for shada (viminfo). When equal to "NONE" no shada file will be read or written. This option can be set with the -i command line flag. The --clean command line flag sets it to "NONE". This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'shell' 'sh' E91 'shell' 'sh' string (default $SHELL or "sh", Win32: "cmd.exe") global Name of the shell to use for ! and :! commands. When changing the value also check these options: 'shellpipe', 'shellslash' 'shellredir', 'shellquote', 'shellxquote' and 'shellcmdflag'. It is allowed to give an argument to the command, e.g. "csh -f". See option-backslash about including spaces and backslashes. Environment variables are expanded :set_env.
If the name of the shell contains a space, you need to enclose it in quotes. Example with quotes:
set shell=\"c:\program\ files\unix\sh.exe\"\ -f
Note the backslash before each quote (to avoid starting a comment) and each space (to avoid ending the option value), so better use :let-& like this:
let &shell='"C:\Program Files\unix\sh.exe" -f'
Also note that the "-f" is not inside the quotes, because it is not part of the command name. shell-unquoting
Rules regarding quotes: 1. Option is split on space and tab characters that are not inside quotes: "abc def" runs shell named "abc" with additional argument "def", '"abc def"' runs shell named "abc def" with no additional arguments (here and below: additional means “additional to 'shellcmdflag'”). 2. Quotes in option may be present in any position and any number: '"abc"', '"a"bc', 'a"b"c', 'ab"c"' and '"a"b"c"' are all equivalent to just "abc". 3. Inside quotes backslash preceding backslash means one backslash. Backslash preceding quote means one quote. Backslash preceding anything else means backslash and next character literally: '"a\\b"' is the same as "a\b", '"a\\"b"' runs shell named literally 'a"b', '"a\b"' is the same as "a\b" again. 4. Outside of quotes backslash always means itself, it cannot be used to escape quote: 'a\"b"' is the same as "a\b". Note that such processing is done after :set did its own round of unescaping, so to keep yourself sane use :let-& like shown above. shell-powershell
To use PowerShell:
let &shell = executable('pwsh') ? 'pwsh' : 'powershell'
let &shellcmdflag = '-NoLogo -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Command [Console]::InputEncoding=[Console]::OutputEncoding=[System.Text.UTF8Encoding]::new();$PSDefaultParameterValues[''Out-File:Encoding'']=''utf8'';Remove-Alias -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue tee;'
let &shellredir = '2>&1 | %%{ "$_" } | Out-File %s; exit $LastExitCode'
let &shellpipe  = '2>&1 | %%{ "$_" } | tee %s; exit $LastExitCode'
set shellquote= shellxquote=
This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'shellcmdflag' 'shcf' 'shellcmdflag' 'shcf' string (default "-c"; Windows: "/s /c") global Flag passed to the shell to execute "!" and ":!" commands; e.g., bash.exe -c ls or cmd.exe /s /c "dir". For MS-Windows, the default is set according to the value of 'shell', to reduce the need to set this option by the user. On Unix it can have more than one flag. Each white space separated part is passed as an argument to the shell command. See option-backslash about including spaces and backslashes. See shell-unquoting which talks about separating this option into multiple arguments. This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'shellpipe' 'sp' 'shellpipe' 'sp' string (default ">", "| tee", "|& tee" or "2>&1| tee") global String to be used to put the output of the ":make" command in the error file. See also :make_makeprg. See option-backslash about including spaces and backslashes. The name of the temporary file can be represented by "%s" if necessary (the file name is appended automatically if no %s appears in the value of this option). For MS-Windows the default is "2>&1| tee". The stdout and stderr are saved in a file and echoed to the screen. For Unix the default is "| tee". The stdout of the compiler is saved in a file and echoed to the screen. If the 'shell' option is "csh" or "tcsh" after initializations, the default becomes "|& tee". If the 'shell' option is "sh", "ksh", "mksh", "pdksh", "zsh", "zsh-beta", "bash", "fish", "ash" or "dash" the default becomes "2>&1| tee". This means that stderr is also included. Before using the 'shell' option a path is removed, thus "/bin/sh" uses "sh". The initialization of this option is done after reading the vimrc and the other initializations, so that when the 'shell' option is set there, the 'shellpipe' option changes automatically, unless it was explicitly set before. When 'shellpipe' is set to an empty string, no redirection of the ":make" output will be done. This is useful if you use a 'makeprg' that writes to 'makeef' by itself. If you want no piping, but do want to include the 'makeef', set 'shellpipe' to a single space. Don't forget to precede the space with a backslash: ":set sp=\ ". In the future pipes may be used for filtering and this option will become obsolete (at least for Unix). This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'shellquote' 'shq' 'shellquote' 'shq' string (default ""; Windows, when 'shell' contains "sh" somewhere: "\"") global Quoting character(s), put around the command passed to the shell, for the "!" and ":!" commands. The redirection is kept outside of the quoting. See 'shellxquote' to include the redirection. It's probably not useful to set both options. This is an empty string by default. Only known to be useful for third-party shells on Windows systems, such as the MKS Korn Shell or bash, where it should be "\"". The default is adjusted according the value of 'shell', to reduce the need to set this option by the user. This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'shellredir' 'srr' 'shellredir' 'srr' string (default ">", ">&" or ">%s 2>&1") global String to be used to put the output of a filter command in a temporary file. See also :!. See option-backslash about including spaces and backslashes. The name of the temporary file can be represented by "%s" if necessary (the file name is appended automatically if no %s appears in the value of this option). The default is ">". For Unix, if the 'shell' option is "csh" or "tcsh" during initializations, the default becomes ">&". If the 'shell' option is "sh", "ksh", "mksh", "pdksh", "zsh", "zsh-beta", "bash" or "fish", the default becomes ">%s 2>&1". This means that stderr is also included. For Win32, the Unix checks are done and additionally "cmd" is checked for, which makes the default ">%s 2>&1". Also, the same names with ".exe" appended are checked for. The initialization of this option is done after reading the vimrc and the other initializations, so that when the 'shell' option is set there, the 'shellredir' option changes automatically unless it was explicitly set before. In the future pipes may be used for filtering and this option will become obsolete (at least for Unix). This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'shellslash' 'ssl' 'noshellslash' 'nossl' 'shellslash' 'ssl' boolean (default off) global only for MS-Windows When set, a forward slash is used when expanding file names. This is useful when a Unix-like shell is used instead of cmd.exe. Backward slashes can still be typed, but they are changed to forward slashes by Vim. Note that setting or resetting this option has no effect for some existing file names, thus this option needs to be set before opening any file for best results. This might change in the future. 'shellslash' only works when a backslash can be used as a path separator. To test if this is so use:
if exists('+shellslash')
Also see 'completeslash'.
'shelltemp' 'stmp' 'noshelltemp' 'nostmp' 'shelltemp' 'stmp' boolean (default on) global When on, use temp files for shell commands. When off use a pipe. When using a pipe is not possible temp files are used anyway. The advantage of using a pipe is that nobody can read the temp file and the 'shell' command does not need to support redirection. The advantage of using a temp file is that the file type and encoding can be detected. The FilterReadPre, FilterReadPost and FilterWritePre, FilterWritePost autocommands event are not triggered when 'shelltemp' is off. system() does not respect this option, it always uses pipes.
'shellxescape' 'sxe' 'shellxescape' 'sxe' string (default "") global When 'shellxquote' is set to "(" then the characters listed in this option will be escaped with a '^' character. This makes it possible to execute most external commands with cmd.exe. This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'shellxquote' 'sxq' 'shellxquote' 'sxq' string (default "", Windows: "\"") global Quoting character(s), put around the command passed to the shell, for the "!" and ":!" commands. Includes the redirection. See 'shellquote' to exclude the redirection. It's probably not useful to set both options. When the value is '(' then ')' is appended. When the value is '"(' then ')"' is appended. When the value is '(' then also see 'shellxescape'. This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'shiftround' 'sr' 'noshiftround' 'nosr' 'shiftround' 'sr' boolean (default off) global Round indent to multiple of 'shiftwidth'. Applies to > and < commands. CTRL-T and CTRL-D in Insert mode always round the indent to a multiple of 'shiftwidth' (this is Vi compatible).
'shiftwidth' 'sw' 'shiftwidth' 'sw' number (default 8) local to buffer Number of spaces to use for each step of (auto)indent. Used for 'cindent', >>, <<, etc. When zero the 'tabstop' value will be used. Use the shiftwidth() function to get the effective shiftwidth value.
'shortmess' 'shm' E1336 'shortmess' 'shm' string (default "ltToOCF") global This option helps to avoid all the hit-enter prompts caused by file messages, for example with CTRL-G, and to avoid some other messages. It is a list of flags:
flag meaning when present
l use "999L, 888B" instead of "999 lines, 888 bytes" shm-l m use "[+]" instead of "[Modified]" shm-m
r use "[RO]" instead of "[readonly]" shm-r
w use "[w]" instead of "written" for file write message shm-w and "[a]" instead of "appended" for ':w >> file' command a all of the above abbreviations shm-a
o overwrite message for writing a file with subsequent shm-o message for reading a file (useful for ":wn" or when 'autowrite' on) O message for reading a file overwrites any previous shm-O message; also for quickfix message (e.g., ":cn") s don't give "search hit BOTTOM, continuing at TOP" or shm-s "search hit TOP, continuing at BOTTOM" messages; when using the search count do not show "W" before the count message (see shm-S below) t truncate file message at the start if it is too long shm-t to fit on the command-line, "<" will appear in the left most column; ignored in Ex mode T truncate other messages in the middle if they are too shm-T long to fit on the command line; "..." will appear in the middle; ignored in Ex mode W don't give "written" or "[w]" when writing a file shm-W A don't give the "ATTENTION" message when an existing shm-A swap file is found I don't give the intro message when starting Vim, shm-I
see :intro c don't give ins-completion-menu messages; for shm-c
example, "-- XXX completion (YYY)", "match 1 of 2", "The only match", "Pattern not found", "Back at original", etc. C don't give messages while scanning for ins-completion shm-C items, for instance "scanning tags" q do not show "recording @a" when recording a macro shm-q F don't give the file info when editing a file, like shm-F :silent was used for the command; note that this also affects messages from 'autoread' reloading S do not show search count message when searching, e.g. shm-S "[1/5]". When the "S" flag is not present (e.g. search count is shown), the "search hit BOTTOM, continuing at TOP" and "search hit TOP, continuing at BOTTOM" messages are only indicated by a "W" (Mnemonic: Wrapped) letter before the search count statistics.
This gives you the opportunity to avoid that a change between buffers requires you to hit <Enter>, but still gives as useful a message as possible for the space available. To get the whole message that you would have got with 'shm' empty, use ":file!" Useful values: shm= No abbreviation of message. shm=a Abbreviation, but no loss of information. shm=at Abbreviation, and truncate message when necessary.
'showbreak' 'sbr' E595 'showbreak' 'sbr' string (default "") global or local to window global-local String to put at the start of lines that have been wrapped. Useful values are "> " or "+++ ":
let &showbreak = "> "
let &showbreak = '+++ '
Only printable single-cell characters are allowed, excluding <Tab> and comma (in a future version the comma might be used to separate the part that is shown at the end and at the start of a line). The hl-NonText highlight group determines the highlighting. Note that tabs after the showbreak will be displayed differently. If you want the 'showbreak' to appear in between line numbers, add the "n" flag to 'cpoptions'. A window-local value overrules a global value. If the global value is set and you want no value in the current window use NONE:
setlocal showbreak=NONE
'showcmd' 'sc' 'noshowcmd' 'nosc' 'showcmd' 'sc' boolean (default on) global Show (partial) command in the last line of the screen. Set this option off if your terminal is slow. In Visual mode the size of the selected area is shown:
When selecting characters within a line, the number of characters. If the number of bytes is different it is also displayed: "2-6" means two characters and six bytes.
When selecting more than one line, the number of lines.
When selecting a block, the size in screen characters: {lines}x{columns}. This information can be displayed in an alternative location using the 'showcmdloc' option, useful when 'cmdheight' is 0.
'showcmdloc' 'sloc' 'showcmdloc' 'sloc' string (default "last") global This option can be used to display the (partially) entered command in another location. Possible values are: last Last line of the screen (default). statusline Status line of the current window. tabline First line of the screen if 'showtabline' is enabled. Setting this option to "statusline" or "tabline" means that these will be redrawn whenever the command changes, which can be on every key pressed. The %S 'statusline' item can be used in 'statusline' or 'tabline' to place the text. Without a custom 'statusline' or 'tabline' it will be displayed in a convenient location.
'showfulltag' 'sft' 'noshowfulltag' 'nosft' 'showfulltag' 'sft' boolean (default off) global When completing a word in insert mode (see ins-completion) from the tags file, show both the tag name and a tidied-up form of the search pattern (if there is one) as possible matches. Thus, if you have matched a C function, you can see a template for what arguments are required (coding style permitting). Note that this doesn't work well together with having "longest" in 'completeopt', because the completion from the search pattern may not match the typed text.
'showmatch' 'sm' 'noshowmatch' 'nosm' 'showmatch' 'sm' boolean (default off) global When a bracket is inserted, briefly jump to the matching one. The jump is only done if the match can be seen on the screen. The time to show the match can be set with 'matchtime'. A Beep is given if there is no match (no matter if the match can be seen or not). When the 'm' flag is not included in 'cpoptions', typing a character will immediately move the cursor back to where it belongs. See the "sm" field in 'guicursor' for setting the cursor shape and blinking when showing the match. The 'matchpairs' option can be used to specify the characters to show matches for. 'rightleft' and 'revins' are used to look for opposite matches. Also see the matchparen plugin for highlighting the match when moving around pi_paren.txt. Note: Use of the short form is rated PG.
'showmode' 'smd' 'noshowmode' 'nosmd' 'showmode' 'smd' boolean (default on) global If in Insert, Replace or Visual mode put a message on the last line. The hl-ModeMsg highlight group determines the highlighting. The option has no effect when 'cmdheight' is zero.
'showtabline' 'stal' 'showtabline' 'stal' number (default 1) global The value of this option specifies when the line with tab page labels will be displayed: 0: never 1: only if there are at least two tab pages 2: always This is both for the GUI and non-GUI implementation of the tab pages line. See tab-page for more information about tab pages.
'sidescroll' 'ss' 'sidescroll' 'ss' number (default 1) global The minimal number of columns to scroll horizontally. Used only when the 'wrap' option is off and the cursor is moved off of the screen. When it is zero the cursor will be put in the middle of the screen. When using a slow terminal set it to a large number or 0. Not used for "zh" and "zl" commands.
'sidescrolloff' 'siso' 'sidescrolloff' 'siso' number (default 0) global or local to window global-local The minimal number of screen columns to keep to the left and to the right of the cursor if 'nowrap' is set. Setting this option to a value greater than 0 while having 'sidescroll' also at a non-zero value makes some context visible in the line you are scrolling in horizontally (except at beginning of the line). Setting this option to a large value (like 999) has the effect of keeping the cursor horizontally centered in the window, as long as one does not come too close to the beginning of the line. After using the local value, go back the global value with one of these two:
setlocal sidescrolloff<
setlocal sidescrolloff=-1
Example: Try this together with 'sidescroll' and 'listchars' as in the following example to never allow the cursor to move onto the "extends" character:
set nowrap sidescroll=1 listchars=extends:>,precedes:<
set sidescrolloff=1
'signcolumn' 'scl' 'signcolumn' 'scl' string (default "auto") local to window When and how to draw the signcolumn. Valid values are: "auto" only when there is a sign to display "auto:[1-9]" resize to accommodate multiple signs up to the given number (maximum 9), e.g. "auto:4" "auto:[1-8]-[2-9]" resize to accommodate multiple signs up to the given maximum number (maximum 9) while keeping at least the given minimum (maximum 8) fixed space. The minimum number should always be less than the maximum number, e.g. "auto:2-5" "no" never "yes" always "yes:[1-9]" always, with fixed space for signs up to the given number (maximum 9), e.g. "yes:3" "number" display signs in the 'number' column. If the number column is not present, then behaves like "auto".
'smartcase' 'scs' 'nosmartcase' 'noscs' 'smartcase' 'scs' boolean (default off) global Override the 'ignorecase' option if the search pattern contains upper case characters. Only used when the search pattern is typed and 'ignorecase' option is on. Used for the commands "/", "?", "n", "N", ":g" and ":s". Not used for "*", "#", "gd", tag search, etc. After "*" and "#" you can make 'smartcase' used by doing a "/" command, recalling the search pattern from history and hitting <Enter>.
'smartindent' 'si' 'nosmartindent' 'nosi' 'smartindent' 'si' boolean (default off) local to buffer Do smart autoindenting when starting a new line. Works for C-like programs, but can also be used for other languages. 'cindent' does something like this, works better in most cases, but is more strict, see C-indenting. When 'cindent' is on or 'indentexpr' is set, setting 'si' has no effect. 'indentexpr' is a more advanced alternative. Normally 'autoindent' should also be on when using 'smartindent'. An indent is automatically inserted:
After a line ending in "{".
After a line starting with a keyword from 'cinwords'.
Before a line starting with "}" (only with the "O" command). When typing '}' as the first character in a new line, that line is given the same indent as the matching "{". When typing '#' as the first character in a new line, the indent for that line is removed, the '#' is put in the first column. The indent is restored for the next line. If you don't want this, use this mapping: ":inoremap # X^H#", where ^H is entered with CTRL-V CTRL-H. When using the ">>" command, lines starting with '#' are not shifted right.
'smarttab' 'sta' 'nosmarttab' 'nosta' 'smarttab' 'sta' boolean (default on) global When on, a <Tab> in front of a line inserts blanks according to 'shiftwidth'. 'tabstop' or 'softtabstop' is used in other places. A <BS> will delete a 'shiftwidth' worth of space at the start of the line. When off, a <Tab> always inserts blanks according to 'tabstop' or 'softtabstop'. 'shiftwidth' is only used for shifting text left or right shift-left-right. What gets inserted (a <Tab> or spaces) depends on the 'expandtab' option. Also see ins-expandtab. When 'expandtab' is not set, the number of spaces is minimized by using <Tab>s.
'smoothscroll' 'sms' 'nosmoothscroll' 'nosms' 'smoothscroll' 'sms' boolean (default off) local to window Scrolling works with screen lines. When 'wrap' is set and the first line in the window wraps part of it may not be visible, as if it is above the window. "<<<" is displayed at the start of the first line, highlighted with hl-NonText. You may also want to add "lastline" to the 'display' option to show as much of the last line as possible. NOTE: partly implemented, doesn't work yet for gj and gk.
'softtabstop' 'sts' 'softtabstop' 'sts' number (default 0) local to buffer Number of spaces that a <Tab> counts for while performing editing operations, like inserting a <Tab> or using <BS>. It "feels" like <Tab>s are being inserted, while in fact a mix of spaces and <Tab>s is used. This is useful to keep the 'ts' setting at its standard value of 8, while being able to edit like it is set to 'sts'. However, commands like "x" still work on the actual characters. When 'sts' is zero, this feature is off. When 'sts' is negative, the value of 'shiftwidth' is used. See also ins-expandtab. When 'expandtab' is not set, the number of spaces is minimized by using <Tab>s. The 'L' flag in 'cpoptions' changes how tabs are used when 'list' is set.
The value of 'softtabstop' will be ignored if 'varsofttabstop' is set to anything other than an empty string.
'spell' 'nospell' 'spell' boolean (default off) local to window When on spell checking will be done. See spell. The languages are specified with 'spelllang'.
'spellcapcheck' 'spc' 'spellcapcheck' 'spc' string (default "[.?!]\_[\])'"\t ]\+") local to buffer Pattern to locate the end of a sentence. The following word will be checked to start with a capital letter. If not then it is highlighted with SpellCap hl-SpellCap (unless the word is also badly spelled). When this check is not wanted make this option empty. Only used when 'spell' is set. Be careful with special characters, see option-backslash about including spaces and backslashes. To set this option automatically depending on the language, see set-spc-auto.
'spellfile' 'spf' 'spellfile' 'spf' string (default "") local to buffer Name of the word list file where words are added for the zg and zw commands. It must end in ".{encoding}.add". You need to include the path, otherwise the file is placed in the current directory. The path may include characters from 'isfname', ' ', ',', '@' and ':'. E765
It may also be a comma-separated list of names. A count before the zg and zw commands can be used to access each. This allows using a personal word list file and a project word list file. When a word is added while this option is empty Vim will set it for you: Using the first directory in 'runtimepath' that is writable. If there is no "spell" directory yet it will be created. For the file name the first language name that appears in 'spelllang' is used, ignoring the region. The resulting ".spl" file will be used for spell checking, it does not have to appear in 'spelllang'. Normally one file is used for all regions, but you can add the region name if you want to. However, it will then only be used when 'spellfile' is set to it, for entries in 'spelllang' only files without region name will be found. This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'spelllang' 'spl' 'spelllang' 'spl' string (default "en") local to buffer A comma-separated list of word list names. When the 'spell' option is on spellchecking will be done for these languages. Example:
set spelllang=en_us,nl,medical
This means US English, Dutch and medical words are recognized. Words that are not recognized will be highlighted. The word list name must consist of alphanumeric characters, a dash or an underscore. It should not include a comma or dot. Using a dash is recommended to separate the two letter language name from a specification. Thus "en-rare" is used for rare English words. A region name must come last and have the form "_xx", where "xx" is the two-letter, lower case region name. You can use more than one region by listing them: "en_us,en_ca" supports both US and Canadian English, but not words specific for Australia, New Zealand or Great Britain. (Note: currently en_au and en_nz dictionaries are older than en_ca, en_gb and en_us). If the name "cjk" is included East Asian characters are excluded from spell checking. This is useful when editing text that also has Asian words. Note that the "medical" dictionary does not exist, it is just an example of a longer name. E757
As a special case the name of a .spl file can be given as-is. The first "_xx" in the name is removed and used as the region name (_xx is an underscore, two letters and followed by a non-letter). This is mainly for testing purposes. You must make sure the correct encoding is used, Vim doesn't check it. How the related spell files are found is explained here: spell-load.
If the spellfile.vim plugin is active and you use a language name for which Vim cannot find the .spl file in 'runtimepath' the plugin will ask you if you want to download the file.
After this option has been set successfully, Vim will source the files "spell/LANG.vim" in 'runtimepath'. "LANG" is the value of 'spelllang' up to the first character that is not an ASCII letter or number and not a dash. Also see set-spc-auto.
'spelloptions' 'spo' 'spelloptions' 'spo' string (default "") local to buffer A comma-separated list of options for spell checking: camel When a word is CamelCased, assume "Cased" is a separate word: every upper-case character in a word that comes after a lower case character indicates the start of a new word. noplainbuffer Only spellcheck a buffer when 'syntax' is enabled, or when extmarks are set within the buffer. Only designated regions of the buffer are spellchecked in this case.
'spellsuggest' 'sps' 'spellsuggest' 'sps' string (default "best") global Methods used for spelling suggestions. Both for the z= command and the spellsuggest() function. This is a comma-separated list of items:
best Internal method that works best for English. Finds changes like "fast" and uses a bit of sound-a-like scoring to improve the ordering.
double Internal method that uses two methods and mixes the results. The first method is "fast", the other method computes how much the suggestion sounds like the bad word. That only works when the language specifies sound folding. Can be slow and doesn't always give better results.
fast Internal method that only checks for simple changes: character inserts/deletes/swaps. Works well for simple typing mistakes.
{number} The maximum number of suggestions listed for z=. Not used for spellsuggest(). The number of suggestions is never more than the value of 'lines' minus two.
timeout:{millisec} Limit the time searching for suggestions to {millisec} milliseconds. Applies to the following methods. When omitted the limit is 5000. When negative there is no limit.
file:{filename} Read file {filename}, which must have two columns, separated by a slash. The first column contains the bad word, the second column the suggested good word. Example:
theribal/terrible
Use this for common mistakes that do not appear at the top of the suggestion list with the internal methods. Lines without a slash are ignored, use this for comments. The word in the second column must be correct, otherwise it will not be used. Add the word to an ".add" file if it is currently flagged as a spelling mistake. The file is used for all languages.
expr:{expr} Evaluate expression {expr}. Use a function to avoid trouble with spaces. Best is to call a function without arguments, see expr-option-function. v:val holds the badly spelled word. The expression must evaluate to a List of Lists, each with a suggestion and a score. Example:
[[the, 33], [that, 44]]
Set 'verbose' and use z= to see the scores that the internal methods use. A lower score is better. This may invoke spellsuggest() if you temporarily set 'spellsuggest' to exclude the "expr:" part. Errors are silently ignored, unless you set the 'verbose' option to a non-zero value.
Only one of "best", "double" or "fast" may be used. The others may appear several times in any order. Example:
set sps=file:~/.config/nvim/sugg,best,expr:MySuggest()
This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'splitbelow' 'sb' 'nosplitbelow' 'nosb' 'splitbelow' 'sb' boolean (default off) global When on, splitting a window will put the new window below the current one. :split
'splitkeep' 'spk' 'splitkeep' 'spk' string (default "cursor") global The value of this option determines the scroll behavior when opening, closing or resizing horizontal splits.
Possible values are: cursor Keep the same relative cursor position. screen Keep the text on the same screen line. topline Keep the topline the same.
For the "screen" and "topline" values, the cursor position will be changed when necessary. In this case, the jumplist will be populated with the previous cursor position. For "screen", the text cannot always be kept on the same screen line when 'wrap' is enabled.
'splitright' 'spr' 'nosplitright' 'nospr' 'splitright' 'spr' boolean (default off) global When on, splitting a window will put the new window right of the current one. :vsplit
'startofline' 'sol' 'nostartofline' 'nosol' 'startofline' 'sol' boolean (default off) global When "on" the commands listed below move the cursor to the first non-blank of the line. When off the cursor is kept in the same column (if possible). This applies to the commands:
CTRL-D, CTRL-U, CTRL-B, CTRL-F, "G", "H", "M", "L", "gg"
"d", "<<" and ">>" with a linewise operator
"%" with a count
buffer changing commands (CTRL-^, :bnext, :bNext, etc.)
Ex commands that only have a line number, e.g., ":25" or ":+". In case of buffer changing commands the cursor is placed at the column where it was the last time the buffer was edited.
'statuscolumn' 'stc' 'statuscolumn' 'stc' string (default "") local to window EXPERIMENTAL When non-empty, this option determines the content of the area to the side of a window, normally containing the fold, sign and number columns. The format of this option is like that of 'statusline'.
Some of the items from the 'statusline' format are different for 'statuscolumn':
%l line number column for currently drawn line %s sign column for currently drawn line %C fold column for currently drawn line
The 'statuscolumn' width follows that of the default columns and adapts to the 'numberwidth', 'signcolumn' and 'foldcolumn' option values (regardless of whether the sign and fold items are present). Additionally, the 'statuscolumn' grows with the size of the evaluated format string, up to a point (following the maximum size of the default fold, sign and number columns). Shrinking only happens when the number of lines in a buffer changes, or the 'statuscolumn' option is set.
The v:lnum variable holds the line number to be drawn. The v:relnum variable holds the relative line number to be drawn. The v:virtnum variable is negative when drawing virtual lines, zero when drawing the actual buffer line, and positive when drawing the wrapped part of a buffer line.
When using v:relnum, keep in mind that cursor movement by itself will not cause the 'statuscolumn' to update unless 'relativenumber' is set.
NOTE: The %@ click execute function item is supported as well but the specified function will be the same for each row in the same column. It cannot be switched out through a dynamic 'statuscolumn' format, the handler should be written with this in mind.
Examples:
" Line number with bar separator and click handlers:
set statuscolumn=%@SignCb@%s%=%T%@NumCb@%l│%T
" Line numbers in hexadecimal for non wrapped part of lines:
let &stc='%=%{v:virtnum>0?"":printf("%x",v:lnum)} '
" Human readable line numbers with thousands separator:
let &stc='%{substitute(v:lnum,"\\d\\zs\\ze\\'
           . '%(\\d\\d\\d\\)\\+$",",","g")}'
" Both relative and absolute line numbers with different
" highlighting for odd and even relative numbers:
let &stc='%#NonText#%{&nu?v:lnum:""}' .
 '%=%{&rnu&&(v:lnum%2)?"\ ".v:relnum:""}' .
 '%#LineNr#%{&rnu&&!(v:lnum%2)?"\ ".v:relnum:""}'
WARNING: this expression is evaluated for each screen line so defining an expensive expression can negatively affect render performance.
'statusline' 'stl' E540 E542 'statusline' 'stl' string (default "") global or local to window global-local When non-empty, this option determines the content of the status line. Also see status-line.
The option consists of printf style '%' items interspersed with normal text. Each status line item is of the form: %-0{minwid}.{maxwid}{item} All fields except the {item} are optional. A single percent sign can be given as "%%".
When the option starts with "%!" then it is used as an expression, evaluated and the result is used as the option value. Example:
set statusline=%!MyStatusLine()
The g:statusline_winid variable will be set to the window-ID of the window that the status line belongs to. The result can contain %{} items that will be evaluated too. Note that the "%!" expression is evaluated in the context of the current window and buffer, while %{} items are evaluated in the context of the window that the statusline belongs to.
When there is error while evaluating the option then it will be made empty to avoid further errors. Otherwise screen updating would loop. When the result contains unprintable characters the result is unpredictable.
Note that the only effect of 'ruler' when this option is set (and 'laststatus' is 2 or 3) is controlling the output of CTRL-G.
field meaning
- Left justify the item. The default is right justified when minwid is larger than the length of the item. 0 Leading zeroes in numeric items. Overridden by "-". minwid Minimum width of the item, padding as set by "-" & "0". Value must be 50 or less. maxwid Maximum width of the item. Truncation occurs with a "<" on the left for text items. Numeric items will be shifted down to maxwid-2 digits followed by ">"number where number is the amount of missing digits, much like an exponential notation. item A one letter code as described below.
Following is a description of the possible statusline items. The second character in "item" is the type: N for number S for string F for flags as described below
not applicable
item meaning
f S Path to the file in the buffer, as typed or relative to current directory. F S Full path to the file in the buffer. t S File name (tail) of file in the buffer. m F Modified flag, text is "[+]"; "[-]" if 'modifiable' is off. M F Modified flag, text is ",+" or ",-". r F Readonly flag, text is "[RO]". R F Readonly flag, text is ",RO". h F Help buffer flag, text is "[help]". H F Help buffer flag, text is ",HLP". w F Preview window flag, text is "[Preview]". W F Preview window flag, text is ",PRV". y F Type of file in the buffer, e.g., "[vim]". See 'filetype'. Y F Type of file in the buffer, e.g., ",VIM". See 'filetype'. q S "[Quickfix List]", "[Location List]" or empty. k S Value of "b:keymap_name" or 'keymap' when :lmap mappings are being used: "<keymap>" n N Buffer number. b N Value of character under cursor. B N As above, in hexadecimal. o N Byte number in file of byte under cursor, first byte is 1. Mnemonic: Offset from start of file (with one added) O N As above, in hexadecimal. l N Line number. L N Number of lines in buffer. c N Column number (byte index). v N Virtual column number (screen column). V N Virtual column number as -{num}. Not displayed if equal to 'c'. p N Percentage through file in lines as in CTRL-G. P S Percentage through file of displayed window. This is like the percentage described for 'ruler'. Always 3 in length, unless translated. S S 'showcmd' content, see 'showcmdloc'. a S Argument list status as in default title. ({current} of {max}) Empty if the argument file count is zero or one. { NF Evaluate expression between "%{" and "}" and substitute result. Note that there is no "%" before the closing "}". The expression cannot contain a "}" character, call a function to work around that. See stl-%{ below. {% - This is almost same as "{" except the result of the expression is re-evaluated as a statusline format string. Thus if the return value of expr contains "%" items they will get expanded. The expression can contain the "}" character, the end of expression is denoted by "%}". For example:
func! Stl_filename() abort
    return "%t"
endfunc
stl=%{Stl_filename()} results in "%t" stl=%{%Stl_filename()%} results in "Name of current file" %} - End of "{%" expression ( - Start of item group. Can be used for setting the width and alignment of a section. Must be followed by %) somewhere. ) - End of item group. No width fields allowed. T N For 'tabline': start of tab page N label. Use %T or %X to end the label. Clicking this label with left mouse button switches to the specified tab page, while clicking it with middle mouse button closes the specified tab page. X N For 'tabline': start of close tab N label. Use %X or %T to end the label, e.g.: %3Xclose%X. Use %999X for a "close current tab" label. Clicking this label with left mouse button closes the specified tab page. @ N Start of execute function label. Use %X or %T to end the label, e.g.: %10@[email protected]%X. Clicking this label runs the specified function: in the example when clicking once using left mouse button on "foo.c", a SwitchBuffer(10, 1, 'l', ' ') expression will be run. The specified function receives the following arguments in order: 1. minwid field value or zero if no N was specified 2. number of mouse clicks to detect multiple clicks 3. mouse button used: "l", "r" or "m" for left, right or middle button respectively; one should not rely on third argument being only "l", "r" or "m": any other non-empty string value that contains only ASCII lower case letters may be expected for other mouse buttons 4. modifiers pressed: string which contains "s" if shift modifier was pressed, "c" for control, "a" for alt and "m" for meta; currently if modifier is not pressed string contains space instead, but one should not rely on presence of spaces or specific order of modifiers: use stridx() to test whether some modifier is present; string is guaranteed to contain only ASCII letters and spaces, one letter per modifier; "?" modifier may also be present, but its presence is a bug that denotes that new mouse button recognition was added without modifying code that reacts on mouse clicks on this label. Use getmousepos().winid in the specified function to get the corresponding window id of the clicked item. < - Where to truncate line if too long. Default is at the start. No width fields allowed. = - Separation point between alignment sections. Each section will be separated by an equal number of spaces. With one %= what comes after it will be right-aligned. With two %= there is a middle part, with white space left and right of it. No width fields allowed. # - Set highlight group. The name must follow and then a # again. Thus use %#HLname# for highlight group HLname. The same highlighting is used, also for the statusline of non-current windows. * - Set highlight group to User{N}, where {N} is taken from the minwid field, e.g. %1*. Restore normal highlight with %* or %0*. The difference between User{N} and StatusLine will be applied to StatusLineNC for the statusline of non-current windows. The number N must be between 1 and 9. See hl-User1..9
When displaying a flag, Vim removes the leading comma, if any, when that flag comes right after plaintext. This will make a nice display when flags are used like in the examples below.
When all items in a group becomes an empty string (i.e. flags that are not set) and a minwid is not set for the group, the whole group will become empty. This will make a group like the following disappear completely from the statusline when none of the flags are set.
set statusline=...%(\ [%M%R%H]%)...
Beware that an expression is evaluated each and every time the status line is displayed. stl-%{ g:actual_curbuf g:actual_curwin While evaluating %{} the current buffer and current window will be set temporarily to that of the window (and buffer) whose statusline is currently being drawn. The expression will evaluate in this context. The variable "g:actual_curbuf" is set to the bufnr() number of the real current buffer and "g:actual_curwin" to the window-ID of the real current window. These values are strings.
The 'statusline' option will be evaluated in the sandbox if set from a modeline, see sandbox-option. This option cannot be set in a modeline when 'modelineexpr' is off.
It is not allowed to change text or jump to another window while evaluating 'statusline' textlock.
If the statusline is not updated when you want it (e.g., after setting a variable that's used in an expression), you can force an update by using :redrawstatus.
A result of all digits is regarded a number for display purposes. Otherwise the result is taken as flag text and applied to the rules described above.
Watch out for errors in expressions. They may render Vim unusable! If you are stuck, hold down ':' or 'Q' to get a prompt, then quit and edit your vimrc or whatever with "vim --clean" to get it right.
Examples: Emulate standard status line with 'ruler' set
set statusline=%<%f\ %h%m%r%=%-14.(%l,%c%V%)\ %P
Similar, but add ASCII value of char under the cursor (like "ga")
set statusline=%<%f%h%m%r%=%b\ 0x%B\ \ %l,%c%V\ %P
Display byte count and byte value, modified flag in red.
set statusline=%<%f%=\ [%1*%M%*%n%R%H]\ %-19(%3l,%02c%03V%)%O'%02b'
hi User1 term=inverse,bold cterm=inverse,bold ctermfg=red
Display a ,GZ flag if a compressed file is loaded
set statusline=...%r%{VarExists('b:gzflag','\ [GZ]')}%h...
In the :autocmd's:
let b:gzflag = 1
And:
unlet b:gzflag
And define this function:
function VarExists(var, val)
    if exists(a:var) | return a:val | else | return '' | endif
endfunction
'suffixes' 'su' 'suffixes' 'su' string (default ".bak,~,.o,.h,.info,.swp,.obj") global Files with these suffixes get a lower priority when multiple files match a wildcard. See suffixes. Commas can be used to separate the suffixes. Spaces after the comma are ignored. A dot is also seen as the start of a suffix. To avoid a dot or comma being recognized as a separator, precede it with a backslash (see option-backslash about including spaces and backslashes). See 'wildignore' for completely ignoring files. The use of :set+= and :set-= is preferred when adding or removing suffixes from the list. This avoids problems when a future version uses another default.
'suffixesadd' 'sua' 'suffixesadd' 'sua' string (default "") local to buffer Comma-separated list of suffixes, which are used when searching for a file for the "gf", "[I", etc. commands. Example:
set suffixesadd=.java
'swapfile' 'swf' 'noswapfile' 'noswf' 'swapfile' 'swf' boolean (default on) local to buffer Use a swapfile for the buffer. This option can be reset when a swapfile is not wanted for a specific buffer. For example, with confidential information that even root must not be able to access. Careful: All text will be in memory:
Don't use this for big files.
Recovery will be impossible! A swapfile will only be present when 'updatecount' is non-zero and 'swapfile' is set. When 'swapfile' is reset, the swap file for the current buffer is immediately deleted. When 'swapfile' is set, and 'updatecount' is non-zero, a swap file is immediately created. Also see swap-file. If you want to open a new buffer without creating a swap file for it, use the :noswapfile modifier. See 'directory' for where the swap file is created.
This option is used together with 'bufhidden' and 'buftype' to specify special kinds of buffers. See special-buffers.
'switchbuf' 'swb' 'switchbuf' 'swb' string (default "uselast") global This option controls the behavior when switching between buffers. This option is checked, when
jumping to errors with the quickfix commands (:cc, :cn, :cp, etc.).
jumping to a tag using the :stag command.
opening a file using the CTRL-W_f or CTRL-W_F command.
jumping to a buffer using a buffer split command (e.g. :sbuffer, :sbnext, or :sbrewind). Possible values (comma-separated list): useopen If included, jump to the first open window in the current tab page that contains the specified buffer (if there is one). Otherwise: Do not examine other windows. usetab Like "useopen", but also consider windows in other tab pages. split If included, split the current window before loading a buffer for a quickfix command that display errors. Otherwise: do not split, use current window (when used in the quickfix window: the previously used window or split if there is no other window). vsplit Just like "split" but split vertically. newtab Like "split", but open a new tab page. Overrules "split" when both are present. uselast If included, jump to the previously used window when jumping to errors with quickfix commands. If a window has 'winfixbuf' enabled, 'switchbuf' is currently not applied to the split window.
'synmaxcol' 'smc' 'synmaxcol' 'smc' number (default 3000) local to buffer Maximum column in which to search for syntax items. In long lines the text after this column is not highlighted and following lines may not be highlighted correctly, because the syntax state is cleared. This helps to avoid very slow redrawing for an XML file that is one long line. Set to zero to remove the limit.
'syntax' 'syn' 'syntax' 'syn' string (default "") local to buffer local-noglobal When this option is set, the syntax with this name is loaded, unless syntax highlighting has been switched off with ":syntax off". Otherwise this option does not always reflect the current syntax (the b:current_syntax variable does). This option is most useful in a modeline, for a file which syntax is not automatically recognized. Example, in an IDL file:
/* vim: set syntax=idl : */
When a dot appears in the value then this separates two filetype names. Example:
/* vim: set syntax=c.doxygen : */
This will use the "c" syntax first, then the "doxygen" syntax. Note that the second one must be prepared to be loaded as an addition, otherwise it will be skipped. More than one dot may appear. To switch off syntax highlighting for the current file, use:
set syntax=OFF
To switch syntax highlighting on according to the current value of the 'filetype' option:
set syntax=ON
What actually happens when setting the 'syntax' option is that the Syntax autocommand event is triggered with the value as argument. This option is not copied to another buffer, independent of the 's' or 'S' flag in 'cpoptions'. Only alphanumeric characters, '.', '-' and '_' can be used.
'tabclose' 'tcl' 'tabclose' 'tcl' string (default "") global This option controls the behavior when closing tab pages (e.g., using :tabclose). When empty Vim goes to the next (right) tab page.
Possible values (comma-separated list): left If included, go to the previous tab page instead of the next one. uselast If included, go to the previously used tab page if possible. This option takes precedence over the others.
'tabline' 'tal' 'tabline' 'tal' string (default "") global When non-empty, this option determines the content of the tab pages line at the top of the Vim window. When empty Vim will use a default tab pages line. See setting-tabline for more info.
The tab pages line only appears as specified with the 'showtabline' option and only when there is no GUI tab line. When 'e' is in 'guioptions' and the GUI supports a tab line 'guitablabel' is used instead. Note that the two tab pages lines are very different.
The value is evaluated like with 'statusline'. You can use tabpagenr(), tabpagewinnr() and tabpagebuflist() to figure out the text to be displayed. Use "%1T" for the first label, "%2T" for the second one, etc. Use "%X" items for closing labels.
When changing something that is used in 'tabline' that does not trigger it to be updated, use :redrawtabline. This option cannot be set in a modeline when 'modelineexpr' is off.
Keep in mind that only one of the tab pages is the current one, others are invisible and you can't jump to their windows.
'tabpagemax' 'tpm' 'tabpagemax' 'tpm' number (default 50) global Maximum number of tab pages to be opened by the -p command line argument or the ":tab all" command. tabpage
'tabstop' 'ts' 'tabstop' 'ts' number (default 8) local to buffer Number of spaces that a <Tab> in the file counts for. Also see the :retab command, and the 'softtabstop' option.
Note: Setting 'tabstop' to any other value than 8 can make your file appear wrong in many places. The value must be more than 0 and less than 10000.
There are five main ways to use tabs in Vim: 1. Always keep 'tabstop' at 8, set 'softtabstop' and 'shiftwidth' to 4 (or 3 or whatever you prefer) and use 'noexpandtab'. Then Vim will use a mix of tabs and spaces, but typing <Tab> and <BS> will behave like a tab appears every 4 (or 3) characters. This is the recommended way, the file will look the same with other tools and when listing it in a terminal. 2. Set 'softtabstop' and 'shiftwidth' to whatever you prefer and use 'expandtab'. This way you will always insert spaces. The formatting will never be messed up when 'tabstop' is changed (leave it at 8 just in case). The file will be a bit larger. You do need to check if no Tabs exist in the file. You can get rid of them by first setting 'expandtab' and using %retab!, making sure the value of 'tabstop' is set correctly. 3. Set 'tabstop' and 'shiftwidth' to whatever you prefer and use 'expandtab'. This way you will always insert spaces. The formatting will never be messed up when 'tabstop' is changed. You do need to check if no Tabs exist in the file, just like in the item just above. 4. Set 'tabstop' and 'shiftwidth' to whatever you prefer and use a modeline to set these values when editing the file again. Only works when using Vim to edit the file, other tools assume a tabstop is worth 8 spaces. 5. Always set 'tabstop' and 'shiftwidth' to the same value, and 'noexpandtab'. This should then work (for initial indents only) for any tabstop setting that people use. It might be nice to have tabs after the first non-blank inserted as spaces if you do this though. Otherwise aligned comments will be wrong when 'tabstop' is changed.
The value of 'tabstop' will be ignored if 'vartabstop' is set to anything other than an empty string.
'tagbsearch' 'tbs' 'notagbsearch' 'notbs' 'tagbsearch' 'tbs' boolean (default on) global When searching for a tag (e.g., for the :ta command), Vim can either use a binary search or a linear search in a tags file. Binary searching makes searching for a tag a LOT faster, but a linear search will find more tags if the tags file wasn't properly sorted. Vim normally assumes that your tags files are sorted, or indicate that they are not sorted. Only when this is not the case does the 'tagbsearch' option need to be switched off.
When 'tagbsearch' is on, binary searching is first used in the tags files. In certain situations, Vim will do a linear search instead for certain files, or retry all files with a linear search. When 'tagbsearch' is off, only a linear search is done.
Linear searching is done anyway, for one file, when Vim finds a line at the start of the file indicating that it's not sorted:
!_TAG_FILE_SORTED        0        /some comment/
[The whitespace before and after the '0' must be a single <Tab>]
When a binary search was done and no match was found in any of the files listed in 'tags', and case is ignored or a pattern is used instead of a normal tag name, a retry is done with a linear search. Tags in unsorted tags files, and matches with different case will only be found in the retry.
If a tag file indicates that it is case-fold sorted, the second, linear search can be avoided when case is ignored. Use a value of '2' in the "!_TAG_FILE_SORTED" line for this. A tag file can be case-fold sorted with the -f switch to "sort" in most unices, as in the command: "sort -f -o tags tags". For Universal ctags and Exuberant ctags version 5.x or higher (at least 5.5) the --sort=foldcase switch can be used for this as well. Note that case must be folded to uppercase for this to work.
By default, tag searches are case-sensitive. Case is ignored when 'ignorecase' is set and 'tagcase' is "followic", or when 'tagcase' is "ignore". Also when 'tagcase' is "followscs" and 'smartcase' is set, or 'tagcase' is "smart", and the pattern contains only lowercase characters.
When 'tagbsearch' is off, tags searching is slower when a full match exists, but faster when no full match exists. Tags in unsorted tags files may only be found with 'tagbsearch' off. When the tags file is not sorted, or sorted in a wrong way (not on ASCII byte value), 'tagbsearch' should be off, or the line given above must be included in the tags file. This option doesn't affect commands that find all matching tags (e.g., command-line completion and ":help").
'tagcase' 'tc' 'tagcase' 'tc' string (default "followic") global or local to buffer global-local This option specifies how case is handled when searching the tags file: followic Follow the 'ignorecase' option followscs Follow the 'smartcase' and 'ignorecase' options ignore Ignore case match Match case smart Ignore case unless an upper case letter is used
'tagfunc' 'tfu' 'tagfunc' 'tfu' string (default "") local to buffer This option specifies a function to be used to perform tag searches. The function gets the tag pattern and should return a List of matching tags. See tag-function for an explanation of how to write the function and an example. The value can be the name of a function, a lambda or a Funcref. See option-value-function for more information. This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'taglength' 'tl' 'taglength' 'tl' number (default 0) global If non-zero, tags are significant up to this number of characters.
'tagrelative' 'tr' 'notagrelative' 'notr' 'tagrelative' 'tr' boolean (default on) global If on and using a tags file in another directory, file names in that tags file are relative to the directory where the tags file is.
'tags' 'tag' E433 'tags' 'tag' string (default "./tags;,tags") global or local to buffer global-local Filenames for the tag command, separated by spaces or commas. To include a space or comma in a file name, precede it with backslashes (see option-backslash about including spaces/commas and backslashes). When a file name starts with "./", the '.' is replaced with the path of the current file. But only when the 'd' flag is not included in 'cpoptions'. Environment variables are expanded :set_env. Also see tags-option. "*", "**" and other wildcards can be used to search for tags files in a directory tree. See file-searching. E.g., "/lib/**/tags" will find all files named "tags" below "/lib". The filename itself cannot contain wildcards, it is used as-is. E.g., "/lib/**/tags?" will find files called "tags?". The tagfiles() function can be used to get a list of the file names actually used. The use of :set+= and :set-= is preferred when adding or removing file names from the list. This avoids problems when a future version uses another default.
'tagstack' 'tgst' 'notagstack' 'notgst' 'tagstack' 'tgst' boolean (default on) global When on, the tagstack is used normally. When off, a ":tag" or ":tselect" command with an argument will not push the tag onto the tagstack. A following ":tag" without an argument, a ":pop" command or any other command that uses the tagstack will use the unmodified tagstack, but does change the pointer to the active entry. Resetting this option is useful when using a ":tag" command in a mapping which should not change the tagstack.
'termbidi' 'tbidi' 'notermbidi' 'notbidi' 'termbidi' 'tbidi' boolean (default off) global The terminal is in charge of Bi-directionality of text (as specified by Unicode). The terminal is also expected to do the required shaping that some languages (such as Arabic) require. Setting this option implies that 'rightleft' will not be set when 'arabic' is set and the value of 'arabicshape' will be ignored. Note that setting 'termbidi' has the immediate effect that 'arabicshape' is ignored, but 'rightleft' isn't changed automatically. For further details see arabic.txt.
'termguicolors' 'tgc' 'notermguicolors' 'notgc' 'termguicolors' 'tgc' boolean (default off) global Enables 24-bit RGB color in the TUI. Uses "gui" :highlight attributes instead of "cterm" attributes. guifg Requires an ISO-8613-3 compatible terminal.
Nvim will automatically attempt to determine if the host terminal supports 24-bit color and will enable this option if it does (unless explicitly disabled by the user).
'termpastefilter' 'tpf' 'termpastefilter' 'tpf' string (default "BS,HT,ESC,DEL") global A comma-separated list of options for specifying control characters to be removed from the text pasted into the terminal window. The supported values are:
BS Backspace
HT TAB
FF Form feed
ESC Escape
DEL DEL
C0 Other control characters, excluding Line feed and Carriage return < ' '
C1 Control characters 0x80...0x9F
'termsync' 'notermsync' 'termsync' boolean (default on) global If the host terminal supports it, buffer all screen updates made during a redraw cycle so that each screen is displayed in the terminal all at once. This can prevent tearing or flickering when the terminal updates faster than Nvim can redraw.
'textwidth' 'tw' 'textwidth' 'tw' number (default 0) local to buffer Maximum width of text that is being inserted. A longer line will be broken after white space to get this width. A zero value disables this. When 'textwidth' is zero, 'wrapmargin' may be used. See also 'formatoptions' and ins-textwidth. When 'formatexpr' is set it will be used to break the line.
'thesaurus' 'tsr' 'thesaurus' 'tsr' string (default "") global or local to buffer global-local List of file names, separated by commas, that are used to lookup words for thesaurus completion commands i_CTRL-X_CTRL-T. See compl-thesaurus.
This option is not used if 'thesaurusfunc' is set, either for the buffer or globally.
To include a comma in a file name precede it with a backslash. Spaces after a comma are ignored, otherwise spaces are included in the file name. See option-backslash about using backslashes. The use of :set+= and :set-= is preferred when adding or removing directories from the list. This avoids problems when a future version uses another default. Backticks cannot be used in this option for security reasons.
'thesaurusfunc' 'tsrfu' 'thesaurusfunc' 'tsrfu' string (default "") global or local to buffer global-local This option specifies a function to be used for thesaurus completion with CTRL-X CTRL-T. i_CTRL-X_CTRL-T See compl-thesaurusfunc. The value can be the name of a function, a lambda or a Funcref. See option-value-function for more information.
This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'tildeop' 'top' 'notildeop' 'notop' 'tildeop' 'top' boolean (default off) global When on: The tilde command "~" behaves like an operator.
'timeout' 'to' 'notimeout' 'noto' 'timeout' 'to' boolean (default on) global This option and 'timeoutlen' determine the behavior when part of a mapped key sequence has been received. For example, if <c-f> is pressed and 'timeout' is set, Nvim will wait 'timeoutlen' milliseconds for any key that can follow <c-f> in a mapping.
'timeoutlen' 'tm' 'timeoutlen' 'tm' number (default 1000) global Time in milliseconds to wait for a mapped sequence to complete.
'title' 'notitle' 'title' boolean (default off) global When on, the title of the window will be set to the value of 'titlestring' (if it is not empty), or to: filename [+=-] (path) - Nvim Where: filename the name of the file being edited - indicates the file cannot be modified, 'ma' off + indicates the file was modified = indicates the file is read-only =+ indicates the file is read-only and modified (path) is the path of the file being edited
Nvim the server name v:servername or "Nvim"
'titlelen'
'titlelen' number (default 85) global Gives the percentage of 'columns' to use for the length of the window title. When the title is longer, only the end of the path name is shown. A '<' character before the path name is used to indicate this. Using a percentage makes this adapt to the width of the window. But it won't work perfectly, because the actual number of characters available also depends on the font used and other things in the title bar. When 'titlelen' is zero the full path is used. Otherwise, values from 1 to 30000 percent can be used. 'titlelen' is also used for the 'titlestring' option.
'titleold'
'titleold' string (default "") global If not empty, this option will be used to set the window title when exiting. Only if 'title' is enabled. This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'titlestring'
'titlestring' string (default "") global When this option is not empty, it will be used for the title of the window. This happens only when the 'title' option is on.
When this option contains printf-style '%' items, they will be expanded according to the rules used for 'statusline'. This option cannot be set in a modeline when 'modelineexpr' is off.
Example:
auto BufEnter * let &titlestring = hostname() .. "/" .. expand("%:p")
set title titlestring=%<%F%=%l/%L-%P titlelen=70
The value of 'titlelen' is used to align items in the middle or right of the available space. Some people prefer to have the file name first:
set titlestring=%t%(\ %M%)%(\ (%{expand(\"%:~:.:h\")})%)%(\ %a%)
Note the use of "%{ }" and an expression to get the path of the file, without the file name. The "%( %)" constructs are used to add a separating space only when needed. NOTE: Use of special characters in 'titlestring' may cause the display to be garbled (e.g., when it contains a CR or NL character).
'ttimeout' 'nottimeout' 'ttimeout' boolean (default on) global This option and 'ttimeoutlen' determine the behavior when part of a key code sequence has been received by the TUI.
For example if <Esc> (the \x1b byte) is received and 'ttimeout' is set, Nvim waits 'ttimeoutlen' milliseconds for the terminal to complete a key code sequence. If no input arrives before the timeout, a single <Esc> is assumed. Many TUI cursor key codes start with <Esc>.
On very slow systems this may fail, causing cursor keys not to work sometimes. If you discover this problem you can ":set ttimeoutlen=9999". Nvim will wait for the next character to arrive after an <Esc>.
'ttimeoutlen' 'ttm' 'ttimeoutlen' 'ttm' number (default 50) global Time in milliseconds to wait for a key code sequence to complete. Also used for CTRL-\ CTRL-N and CTRL-\ CTRL-G when part of a command has been typed.
'undodir' 'udir' E5003 'undodir' 'udir' string (default "$XDG_STATE_HOME/nvim/undo//") global List of directory names for undo files, separated with commas. See 'backupdir' for details of the format. "." means using the directory of the file. The undo file name for "file.txt" is ".file.txt.un~". For other directories the file name is the full path of the edited file, with path separators replaced with "%". When writing: The first directory that exists is used. "." always works, no directories after "." will be used for writing. If none of the directories exist Nvim will attempt to create the last directory in the list. When reading all entries are tried to find an undo file. The first undo file that exists is used. When it cannot be read an error is given, no further entry is used. See undo-persistence. This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
Note that unlike 'directory' and 'backupdir', 'undodir' always acts as though the trailing slashes are present (see 'backupdir' for what this means).
'undofile' 'udf' 'noundofile' 'noudf' 'undofile' 'udf' boolean (default off) local to buffer When on, Vim automatically saves undo history to an undo file when writing a buffer to a file, and restores undo history from the same file on buffer read. The directory where the undo file is stored is specified by 'undodir'. For more information about this feature see undo-persistence. The undo file is not read when 'undoreload' causes the buffer from before a reload to be saved for undo. When 'undofile' is turned off the undo file is NOT deleted.
'undolevels' 'ul' 'undolevels' 'ul' number (default 1000) global or local to buffer global-local Maximum number of changes that can be undone. Since undo information is kept in memory, higher numbers will cause more memory to be used. Nevertheless, a single change can already use a large amount of memory. Set to 0 for Vi compatibility: One level of undo and "u" undoes itself:
set ul=0
But you can also get Vi compatibility by including the 'u' flag in 'cpoptions', and still be able to use CTRL-R to repeat undo. Also see undo-two-ways. Set to -1 for no undo at all. You might want to do this only for the current buffer:
setlocal ul=-1
This helps when you run out of memory for a single change.
The local value is set to -123456 when the global value is to be used.
Also see clear-undo.
'undoreload' 'ur' 'undoreload' 'ur' number (default 10000) global Save the whole buffer for undo when reloading it. This applies to the ":e!" command and reloading for when the buffer changed outside of Vim. FileChangedShell The save only happens when this option is negative or when the number of lines is smaller than the value of this option. Set this option to zero to disable undo for a reload.
When saving undo for a reload, any undo file is not read.
Note that this causes the whole buffer to be stored in memory. Set this option to a lower value if you run out of memory.
'updatecount' 'uc' 'updatecount' 'uc' number (default 200) global After typing this many characters the swap file will be written to disk. When zero, no swap file will be created at all (see chapter on recovery crash-recovery). 'updatecount' is set to zero by starting Vim with the "-n" option, see startup. When editing in readonly mode this option will be initialized to 10000. The swapfile can be disabled per buffer with 'swapfile'. When 'updatecount' is set from zero to non-zero, swap files are created for all buffers that have 'swapfile' set. When 'updatecount' is set to zero, existing swap files are not deleted. This option has no meaning in buffers where 'buftype' is "nofile" or "nowrite".
'updatetime' 'ut' 'updatetime' 'ut' number (default 4000) global If this many milliseconds nothing is typed the swap file will be written to disk (see crash-recovery). Also used for the CursorHold autocommand event.
'varsofttabstop' 'vsts' 'varsofttabstop' 'vsts' string (default "") local to buffer A list of the number of spaces that a <Tab> counts for while editing, such as inserting a <Tab> or using <BS>. It "feels" like variable- width <Tab>s are being inserted, while in fact a mixture of spaces and <Tab>s is used. Tab widths are separated with commas, with the final value applying to all subsequent tabs.
For example, when editing assembly language files where statements start in the 9th column and comments in the 41st, it may be useful to use the following:
set varsofttabstop=8,32,8
This will set soft tabstops with 8 and 8 + 32 spaces, and 8 more for every column thereafter.
Note that the value of 'softtabstop' will be ignored while 'varsofttabstop' is set.
'vartabstop' 'vts' 'vartabstop' 'vts' string (default "") local to buffer A list of the number of spaces that a <Tab> in the file counts for, separated by commas. Each value corresponds to one tab, with the final value applying to all subsequent tabs. For example:
set vartabstop=4,20,10,8
This will make the first tab 4 spaces wide, the second 20 spaces, the third 10 spaces, and all following tabs 8 spaces.
Note that the value of 'tabstop' will be ignored while 'vartabstop' is set.
'verbose' 'vbs' 'verbose' 'vbs' number (default 0) global Sets the verbosity level. Also set by -V and :verbose.
Tracing of assignments to options, mappings, etc. in Lua scripts is enabled at level 1; Lua scripts are not traced when 'verbose' is 0, for performance.
If greater than or equal to a given level, Nvim produces the following messages:
Level Messages
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Enables Lua tracing (see above). Does not produce messages. 2 When a file is ":source"'ed, or shada file is read or written. 3 UI info, terminal capabilities. 4 Shell commands. 5 Every searched tags file and include file. 8 Files for which a group of autocommands is executed. 9 Executed autocommands. 11 Finding items in a path. 12 Vimscript function calls. 13 When an exception is thrown, caught, finished, or discarded. 14 Anything pending in a ":finally" clause. 15 Ex commands from a script (truncated at 200 characters). 16 Ex commands.
If 'verbosefile' is set then the verbose messages are not displayed.
'verbosefile' 'vfile' 'verbosefile' 'vfile' string (default "") global When not empty all messages are written in a file with this name. When the file exists messages are appended. Writing to the file ends when Vim exits or when 'verbosefile' is made empty. Writes are buffered, thus may not show up for some time. Setting 'verbosefile' to a new value is like making it empty first. The difference with :redir is that verbose messages are not displayed when 'verbosefile' is set. This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'viewdir' 'vdir' 'viewdir' 'vdir' string (default "$XDG_STATE_HOME/nvim/view//") global Name of the directory where to store files for :mkview. This option cannot be set from a modeline or in the sandbox, for security reasons.
'viewoptions' 'vop' 'viewoptions' 'vop' string (default "folds,cursor,curdir") global Changes the effect of the :mkview command. It is a comma-separated list of words. Each word enables saving and restoring something:
word save and restore
cursor cursor position in file and in window curdir local current directory, if set with :lcd folds manually created folds, opened/closed folds and local fold options options options and mappings local to a window or buffer (not global values for local options) localoptions same as "options" slash deprecated Always enabled. Uses "/" in filenames. unix deprecated Always enabled. Uses "\n" line endings.
'virtualedit' 've' 'virtualedit' 've' string (default "") global or local to window global-local A comma-separated list of these words: block Allow virtual editing in Visual block mode. insert Allow virtual editing in Insert mode. all Allow virtual editing in all modes. onemore Allow the cursor to move just past the end of the line none When used as the local value, do not allow virtual editing even when the global value is set. When used as the global value, "none" is the same as "". NONE Alternative spelling of "none".
Virtual editing means that the cursor can be positioned where there is no actual character. This can be halfway into a tab or beyond the end of the line. Useful for selecting a rectangle in Visual mode and editing a table. "onemore" is not the same, it will only allow moving the cursor just after the last character of the line. This makes some commands more consistent. Previously the cursor was always past the end of the line if the line was empty. But it is far from Vi compatible. It may also break some plugins or Vim scripts. For example because l can move the cursor after the last character. Use with care! Using the $ command will move to the last character in the line, not past it. This may actually move the cursor to the left! The g$ command will move to the end of the screen line. It doesn't make sense to combine "all" with "onemore", but you will not get a warning for it. When combined with other words, "none" is ignored.
'visualbell' 'vb' 'novisualbell' 'novb' 'visualbell' 'vb' boolean (default off) global Use visual bell instead of beeping. Also see 'errorbells'.
'warn' 'nowarn' 'warn' boolean (default on) global Give a warning message when a shell command is used while the buffer has been changed.
'whichwrap' 'ww' 'whichwrap' 'ww' string (default "b,s") global Allow specified keys that move the cursor left/right to move to the previous/next line when the cursor is on the first/last character in the line. Concatenate characters to allow this for these keys:
char key mode
b <BS> Normal and Visual s <Space> Normal and Visual h "h" Normal and Visual (not recommended) l "l" Normal and Visual (not recommended) < <Left> Normal and Visual > <Right> Normal and Visual ~ "~" Normal [ <Left> Insert and Replace ] <Right> Insert and Replace For example:
set ww=<,>,[,]
allows wrap only when cursor keys are used. When the movement keys are used in combination with a delete or change operator, the <EOL> also counts for a character. This makes "3h" different from "3dh" when the cursor crosses the end of a line. This is also true for "x" and "X", because they do the same as "dl" and "dh". If you use this, you may also want to use the mapping ":map <BS> X" to make backspace delete the character in front of the cursor. When 'l' is included and it is used after an operator at the end of a line (not an empty line) then it will not move to the next line. This makes "dl", "cl", "yl" etc. work normally.
'wildchar' 'wc' 'wildchar' 'wc' number (default <Tab>) global Character you have to type to start wildcard expansion in the command-line, as specified with 'wildmode'. More info here: cmdline-completion. The character is not recognized when used inside a macro. See 'wildcharm' for that. Some keys will not work, such as CTRL-C, <CR> and Enter. <Esc> can be used, but hitting it twice in a row will still exit command-line as a failsafe measure. Although 'wc' is a number option, you can set it to a special key:
set wc=<Tab>
'wildcharm' 'wcm' 'wildcharm' 'wcm' number (default 0) global 'wildcharm' works exactly like 'wildchar', except that it is recognized when used inside a macro. You can find "spare" command-line keys suitable for this option by looking at ex-edit-index. Normally you'll never actually type 'wildcharm', just use it in mappings that automatically invoke completion mode, e.g.:
set wcm=<C-Z>
cnoremap ss so $vim/sessions/*.vim<C-Z>
Then after typing :ss you can use CTRL-P & CTRL-N.
'wildignore' 'wig' 'wildignore' 'wig' string (default "") global A list of file patterns. A file that matches with one of these patterns is ignored when expanding wildcards, completing file or directory names, and influences the result of expand(), glob() and globpath() unless a flag is passed to disable this. The pattern is used like with :autocmd, see autocmd-pattern. Also see 'suffixes'. Example:
set wildignore=*.o,*.obj
The use of :set+= and :set-= is preferred when adding or removing a pattern from the list. This avoids problems when a future version uses another default.
'wildignorecase' 'wic' 'nowildignorecase' 'nowic' 'wildignorecase' 'wic' boolean (default off) global When set case is ignored when completing file names and directories. Has no effect when 'fileignorecase' is set. Does not apply when the shell is used to expand wildcards, which happens when there are special characters.
'wildmenu' 'wmnu' 'nowildmenu' 'nowmnu' 'wildmenu' 'wmnu' boolean (default on) global When 'wildmenu' is on, command-line completion operates in an enhanced mode. On pressing 'wildchar' (usually <Tab>) to invoke completion, the possible matches are shown. When 'wildoptions' contains "pum", then the completion matches are shown in a popup menu. Otherwise they are displayed just above the command line, with the first match highlighted (overwriting the status line, if there is one). Keys that show the previous/next match, such as <Tab> or CTRL-P/CTRL-N, cause the highlight to move to the appropriate match. 'wildmode' must specify "full": "longest" and "list" do not start 'wildmenu' mode. You can check the current mode with wildmenumode(). The menu is cancelled when a key is hit that is not used for selecting a completion.
While the menu is active these keys have special meanings: CTRL-P - go to the previous entry CTRL-N - go to the next entry <Left> <Right> - select previous/next match (like CTRL-P/CTRL-N) <PageUp> - select a match several entries back <PageDown> - select a match several entries further <Up> - in filename/menu name completion: move up into parent directory or parent menu. <Down> - in filename/menu name completion: move into a subdirectory or submenu. <CR> - in menu completion, when the cursor is just after a dot: move into a submenu. CTRL-E - end completion, go back to what was there before selecting a match. CTRL-Y - accept the currently selected match and stop completion.
If you want <Left> and <Right> to move the cursor instead of selecting a different match, use this:
cnoremap <Left> <Space><BS><Left>
cnoremap <Right> <Space><BS><Right>
hl-WildMenu highlights the current match.
'wildmode' 'wim' 'wildmode' 'wim' string (default "full") global Completion mode that is used for the character specified with 'wildchar'. It is a comma-separated list of up to four parts. Each part specifies what to do for each consecutive use of 'wildchar'. The first part specifies the behavior for the first use of 'wildchar', The second part for the second use, etc.
Each part consists of a colon separated list consisting of the following possible values: "" Complete only the first match. "full" Complete the next full match. After the last match, the original string is used and then the first match again. Will also start 'wildmenu' if it is enabled. "longest" Complete till longest common string. If this doesn't result in a longer string, use the next part. "list" When more than one match, list all matches. "lastused" When completing buffer names and more than one buffer matches, sort buffers by time last used (other than the current buffer). When there is only a single match, it is fully completed in all cases.
Examples of useful colon-separated values: "longest:full" Like "longest", but also start 'wildmenu' if it is enabled. Will not complete to the next full match. "list:full" When more than one match, list all matches and complete first match. "list:longest" When more than one match, list all matches and complete till longest common string. "list:lastused" When more than one buffer matches, list all matches and sort buffers by time last used (other than the current buffer).
Examples:
set wildmode=full
Complete first full match, next match, etc. (the default)
set wildmode=longest,full
Complete longest common string, then each full match
set wildmode=list:full
List all matches and complete each full match
set wildmode=list,full
List all matches without completing, then each full match
set wildmode=longest,list
Complete longest common string, then list alternatives. More info here: cmdline-completion.
'wildoptions' 'wop' 'wildoptions' 'wop' string (default "pum,tagfile") global A list of words that change how cmdline-completion is done. The following values are supported: fuzzy Use fuzzy-matching to find completion matches. When this value is specified, wildcard expansion will not be used for completion. The matches will be sorted by the "best match" rather than alphabetically sorted. This will find more matches than the wildcard expansion. Currently fuzzy matching based completion is not supported for file and directory names and instead wildcard expansion is used. pum Display the completion matches using the popup menu in the same style as the ins-completion-menu. tagfile When using CTRL-D to list matching tags, the kind of tag and the file of the tag is listed. Only one match is displayed per line. Often used tag kinds are: d #define f function
'winaltkeys' 'wak' 'winaltkeys' 'wak' string (default "menu") global only used in Win32 Some GUI versions allow the access to menu entries by using the ALT key in combination with a character that appears underlined in the menu. This conflicts with the use of the ALT key for mappings and entering special characters. This option tells what to do: no Don't use ALT keys for menus. ALT key combinations can be mapped, but there is no automatic handling. yes ALT key handling is done by the windowing system. ALT key combinations cannot be mapped. menu Using ALT in combination with a character that is a menu shortcut key, will be handled by the windowing system. Other keys can be mapped. If the menu is disabled by excluding 'm' from 'guioptions', the ALT key is never used for the menu. This option is not used for <F10>; on Win32.
'winbar' 'wbr' 'winbar' 'wbr' string (default "") global or local to window global-local When non-empty, this option enables the window bar and determines its contents. The window bar is a bar that's shown at the top of every window with it enabled. The value of 'winbar' is evaluated like with 'statusline'.
When changing something that is used in 'winbar' that does not trigger it to be updated, use :redrawstatus.
Floating windows do not use the global value of 'winbar'. The window-local value of 'winbar' must be set for a floating window to have a window bar.
This option cannot be set in a modeline when 'modelineexpr' is off.
'winblend' 'winbl' 'winblend' 'winbl' number (default 0) local to window Enables pseudo-transparency for a floating window. Valid values are in the range of 0 for fully opaque window (disabled) to 100 for fully transparent background. Values between 0-30 are typically most useful.
UI-dependent. Works best with RGB colors. 'termguicolors'
'window' 'wi' 'window' 'wi' number (default screen height - 1) global Window height used for CTRL-F and CTRL-B when there is only one window and the value is smaller than 'lines' minus one. The screen will scroll 'window' minus two lines, with a minimum of one. When 'window' is equal to 'lines' minus one CTRL-F and CTRL-B scroll in a much smarter way, taking care of wrapping lines. When resizing the Vim window, and the value is smaller than 1 or more than or equal to 'lines' it will be set to 'lines' minus 1. Note: Do not confuse this with the height of the Vim window, use 'lines' for that.
'winfixbuf' 'wfb' 'nowinfixbuf' 'nowfb' 'winfixbuf' 'wfb' boolean (default off) local to window If enabled, the window and the buffer it is displaying are paired. For example, attempting to change the buffer with :edit will fail. Other commands which change a window's buffer such as :cnext will also skip any window with 'winfixbuf' enabled. However if an Ex command has a "!" modifier, it can force switching buffers.
'winfixheight' 'wfh' 'nowinfixheight' 'nowfh' 'winfixheight' 'wfh' boolean (default off) local to window local-noglobal Keep the window height when windows are opened or closed and 'equalalways' is set. Also for CTRL-W_=. Set by default for the preview-window and quickfix-window. The height may be changed anyway when running out of room.
'winfixwidth' 'wfw' 'nowinfixwidth' 'nowfw' 'winfixwidth' 'wfw' boolean (default off) local to window local-noglobal Keep the window width when windows are opened or closed and 'equalalways' is set. Also for CTRL-W_=. The width may be changed anyway when running out of room.
'winheight' 'wh' E591 'winheight' 'wh' number (default 1) global Minimal number of lines for the current window. This is not a hard minimum, Vim will use fewer lines if there is not enough room. If the focus goes to a window that is smaller, its size is increased, at the cost of the height of other windows. Set 'winheight' to a small number for normal editing. Set it to 999 to make the current window fill most of the screen. Other windows will be only 'winminheight' high. This has the drawback that ":all" will create only two windows. To avoid "vim -o 1 2 3 4" to create only two windows, set the option after startup is done, using the VimEnter event:
au VimEnter * set winheight=999
Minimum value is 1. The height is not adjusted after one of the commands that change the height of the current window. 'winheight' applies to the current window. Use 'winminheight' to set the minimal height for other windows.
'winhighlight' 'winhl' 'winhighlight' 'winhl' string (default "") local to window Window-local highlights. Comma-delimited list of highlight group-name pairs "{hl-from}:{hl-to},..." where each {hl-from} is a highlight-groups item to be overridden by {hl-to} group in the window.
Note: highlight namespaces take precedence over 'winhighlight'. See nvim_win_set_hl_ns() and nvim_set_hl().
Highlights of vertical separators are determined by the window to the left of the separator. The 'tabline' highlight of a tabpage is decided by the last-focused window of the tabpage. Highlights of the popupmenu are determined by the current window. Highlights in the message area cannot be overridden.
Example: show a different color for non-current windows:
set winhighlight=Normal:MyNormal,NormalNC:MyNormalNC
'winminheight' 'wmh' 'winminheight' 'wmh' number (default 1) global The minimal height of a window, when it's not the current window. This is a hard minimum, windows will never become smaller. When set to zero, windows may be "squashed" to zero lines (i.e. just a status bar) if necessary. They will return to at least one line when they become active (since the cursor has to have somewhere to go.) Use 'winheight' to set the minimal height of the current window. This option is only checked when making a window smaller. Don't use a large number, it will cause errors when opening more than a few windows. A value of 0 to 3 is reasonable.
'winminwidth' 'wmw' 'winminwidth' 'wmw' number (default 1) global The minimal width of a window, when it's not the current window. This is a hard minimum, windows will never become smaller. When set to zero, windows may be "squashed" to zero columns (i.e. just a vertical separator) if necessary. They will return to at least one line when they become active (since the cursor has to have somewhere to go.) Use 'winwidth' to set the minimal width of the current window. This option is only checked when making a window smaller. Don't use a large number, it will cause errors when opening more than a few windows. A value of 0 to 12 is reasonable.
'winwidth' 'wiw' E592 'winwidth' 'wiw' number (default 20) global Minimal number of columns for the current window. This is not a hard minimum, Vim will use fewer columns if there is not enough room. If the current window is smaller, its size is increased, at the cost of the width of other windows. Set it to 999 to make the current window always fill the screen. Set it to a small number for normal editing. The width is not adjusted after one of the commands to change the width of the current window. 'winwidth' applies to the current window. Use 'winminwidth' to set the minimal width for other windows.
'wrap' 'nowrap' 'wrap' boolean (default on) local to window This option changes how text is displayed. It doesn't change the text in the buffer, see 'textwidth' for that. When on, lines longer than the width of the window will wrap and displaying continues on the next line. When off lines will not wrap and only part of long lines will be displayed. When the cursor is moved to a part that is not shown, the screen will scroll horizontally. The line will be broken in the middle of a word if necessary. See 'linebreak' to get the break at a word boundary. To make scrolling horizontally a bit more useful, try this:
set sidescroll=5
set listchars+=precedes:<,extends:>
See 'sidescroll', 'listchars' and wrap-off. This option can't be set from a modeline when the 'diff' option is on.
'wrapmargin' 'wm' 'wrapmargin' 'wm' number (default 0) local to buffer Number of characters from the right window border where wrapping starts. When typing text beyond this limit, an <EOL> will be inserted and inserting continues on the next line. Options that add a margin, such as 'number' and 'foldcolumn', cause the text width to be further reduced. When 'textwidth' is non-zero, this option is not used. See also 'formatoptions' and ins-textwidth.
'wrapscan' 'ws' 'nowrapscan' 'nows' E384 E385 'wrapscan' 'ws' boolean (default on) global Searches wrap around the end of the file. Also applies to ]s and [s, searching for spelling mistakes.
'write' 'nowrite' 'write' boolean (default on) global Allows writing files. When not set, writing a file is not allowed. Can be used for a view-only mode, where modifications to the text are still allowed. Can be reset with the -m or -M command line argument. Filtering text is still possible, even though this requires writing a temporary file.
'writeany' 'wa' 'nowriteany' 'nowa' 'writeany' 'wa' boolean (default off) global Allows writing to any file with no need for "!" override.
'writebackup' 'wb' 'nowritebackup' 'nowb' 'writebackup' 'wb' boolean (default on) global Make a backup before overwriting a file. The backup is removed after the file was successfully written, unless the 'backup' option is also on. WARNING: Switching this option off means that when Vim fails to write your buffer correctly and then, for whatever reason, Vim exits, you lose both the original file and what you were writing. Only reset this option if your file system is almost full and it makes the write fail (and make sure not to exit Vim until the write was successful). See backup-table for another explanation. When the 'backupskip' pattern matches, a backup is not made anyway. Depending on 'backupcopy' the backup is a new file or the original file renamed (and a new file is written).
'writedelay' 'wd' 'writedelay' 'wd' number (default 0) global Only takes effect together with 'redrawdebug'. The number of milliseconds to wait after each line or each flush
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Quick reference
1. Setting options
2. Automatically setting options
3. Options summary