Gvim syntax highlighting - perl

I was trying to make Gvim highlight syntax of a certain type of file(as Perl) using following command
au BufNewFile,BufRead *.bias setf perl
But as the first line of this file doesn't start with a #!/usr/bin/perl. Gvim is not performing syntax highlighting of Perl. Any solution for this ?

Try this in your .vimrc (I think Gvim still uses that)
autocmd BufRead *.bias set filetype=perl
If you just want to do it for a single file then try:
:set filetype=perl

Just put the line you already have in ~/.vim/ftdetect/bias.vim and it should work. I have several custom files I've set up syntax highlighting for in this way and have had no problems.
(Note: if you're on windows, the path would be ~/vimfiles/ftdetect/bias.vim )

Related

Using vim as default editor for matlab

I want to use gvim as the standard editor for Matlab. It used to work on Linux but now I am forced to use windows and I can't seem to figure out how to set the editor such that files are opened in gvim in a new tab.
In the preferences there is a field which allows to pass a command that points to the prefered text editor. That works, but things fail when I try to give additional options, in my case that would be "--remote-tab-silent" to tell gvim to open the file in a running instance in a new tab. More specifically, the following line in the matlab preferences works:
C:\pathtovim\gvim.exe
while this one fails
C:\pathtovim\gvim.exe --remote-tab-silent
A command line opens with the following error message (my own translation from German):
The command ""C:\pathtovim\gvim.exe --remote-tab-silent"" is either spelled incorrectly or could not be found.
My guess is that it has something to do with the additional quotes, I have no idea why the command is issued with quotes, even though in the field I put it without. The follwing commands work when typed into the command line directly:
"C:\pathtovim\gvim.exe"
C:\pathtovim\gvim.exe --remote-tab-silent file.m
and this one fails:
"C:\pathtovim\gvim.exe --remote-tab-silent file.m"
I'd really appreciate any help! Thanks!
I can't find a good way to hack around it through the MATLAB settings; it looks like MATLAB is stupidly expecting the text editor to take only file names as arguments.
I think your best option, is to create a .bat script that simply passes any arguments it receives on to Vim, inserting the --remote-tab-silent.
I.e. create a .bat file with these contents:
"C:\pathtovim\gvim.exe" --remote-tab-silent %*
Then set up your MATLAB preferences to invoke the .bat file rather than Vim.

emacs makefile-mode for Makefile.include

I use file named Makefile.include as a GNU makefile. I am trying to get emacs use the makefile-mode to use for this file. Alt-X makefile-mode works. Is there a way to tell emacs to use this major mode for this file right after opening automatically?
I tried putting
# _*_ mode: makefile; _*_
in the file but that does not appear to have the right effect. Btw I could not find the list of allowed strings one can use after mode:, so I tried BDSmakefile and some other variations as well.
Thanks.
See this question: Setting auto-mode-alist in emacs, and use the pair ("Makefile\\.include\\'" . makefile-mode).

How to force emacs to use \n instead of \r\n

I have to use windows to write some shell scripts. I decided to use emacs, but I get a weird error when running the script:
/bin/bash^M: bad interpreter: No such file or directory
Correct me if I'm wrong, but that looks like the shebang ends in \r\n instead of just \n. How can I tell emacs to only write \n? I'm in Shell-script major mode. It's quite surprising this isn't fixed by default.
As Jürgen mentioned, you need to use the set-buffer-file-coding-system. You can say
(set-buffer-file-coding-system 'unix)
and stick that into a function inside the find-file-hook so that it will set it for all the buffers you open. Alternatively, you can put it inside the write-file-hook list so that the file-coding-system is set properly before you dump the file to disk.
For a simpler way out, if you're using the GUI version of Emacs, you can click on the 3rd character in the modeline from the left. It's to toggle between eol formats.
Use:
set-buffer-file-coding-system
(should be bound to a key-sequence) before saving the file.

How can I script vim to run perltidy on a buffer?

At my current job, we have coding-style standards that are different from the ones I normally follow. Fortunately, we have a canned RC file for perltidy that I can apply to reformat files before I submit them to our review process.
I have code for emacs that I use to run a command over a buffer and replace the buffer with the output, which I have adapted for this. But I sometimes alternate between emacs and vim, and would like to have the same capabilities there. I'm sure that this or something similar is simple and had been done and re-done many times over. But I've not had much luck finding any examples of vim-script that seem to do what I need. Which is, in essence, to be able to hit a key combo (like Ctrl-F6, what I use in emacs) and have the buffer be reformatted in-place by perltidy. While I'm a comfortable vim-user, I'm completely clueless at writing this sort of thing for vim.
After trying #hobbs answer I noticed that when filtering the entire buffer through perltidy the cursor returned to byte 1, and I had to make a mental note of the original line number so I could go back after :Tidy completed.
So building on #hobbs' and #Ignacio's answers, I added the following to my .vimrc:
"define :Tidy command to run perltidy on visual selection || entire buffer"
command -range=% -nargs=* Tidy <line1>,<line2>!perltidy
"run :Tidy on entire buffer and return cursor to (approximate) original position"
fun DoTidy()
let l = line(".")
let c = col(".")
:Tidy
call cursor(l, c)
endfun
"shortcut for normal mode to run on entire buffer then return to current line"
au Filetype perl nmap <F2> :call DoTidy()<CR>
"shortcut for visual mode to run on the current visual selection"
au Filetype perl vmap <F2> :Tidy<CR>
(closing " added to comments for SO syntax highlighting purposes (not required, but valid vim syntax))
DoTidy() will return the cursor to its original position plus or minus at most X bytes, where X is the number of bytes added/removed by perltidy relative to the original cursor position. But this is fairly trivial as long as you keep things tidy :).
[Vim version: 7.2]
EDIT: Updated DoTidy() to incorporate #mikew's comment for readability and for compatibility with Vim 7.0
My tidy command:
command -range=% -nargs=* Tidy <line1>,<line2>!
\perltidy (your default options go here) <args>
If you use a visual selection or provide a range then it will tidy the selected range, otherwise it will use the whole file. You can put a set of default options (if you have any) at the point where I wrote (your default options go here), but any arguments that you provide to :Tidy will be appended to the perltidy commandline, overriding your defaults. (If you use a .perltidyrc you might not have default args -- that's fine -- but then again you might want to have a default like --profile=vim that sets up defaults only for when you're working in vim. Whatever works.)
The command to filter the entire buffer through an external program is:
:%!command
Put the following in ~/.vimrc to bind it to Ctrl-F6 in normal mode:
:nmap <C-F6> :%!command<CR>
For added fun:
:au Filetype perl nmap <C-F6> :%!command<CR>
This will only map the filter if editing a Perl file.
Taking hobbs' answer a step further, you can map that command to a shortcut key:
command -range=% -nargs=* Tidy <line1>,<line2>!perltidy -q
noremap <C-F6> :Tidy<CR>
And another step further: Only map the command when you're in a Perl buffer (since you probably wouldn't want to run perltidy on any other language):
autocmd BufRead,BufNewFile *.pl,*.plx,*.pm command! -range=% -nargs=* Tidy <line1>,<line2>!perltidy -q
autocmd BufRead,BufNewFile *.pl,*.plx,*.pm noremap <C-F6> :Tidy<CR>
Now you can press Ctrl-F6 without an active selection to format the whole file, or with an active selection to format just that section.
Instead of creating a new keyboard shortcut, how about replacing the meaning of the = command which is already in people's finger memory for indenting stuff? Yes, perlcritic does more than just indent but when you use perlcritic anyways, then you probably don't want to go back to the inferior "just indent" = command. So lets overwrite it!
filetype plugin indent on
autocmd FileType perl setlocal equalprg=perltidy
And now we can use = just like before but with the added functionality of perlcritic that goes beyond just indenting lines:
== run perlcritic on the current line
5== run perlcritic on five lines
=i{ Re-indent the 'inner block', i.e. the contents of the block
=a{ Re-indent 'a block', i.e. block and containing braces
=2a{ Re-indent '2 blocks', i.e. this block and containing block
gg=G run perlcritic on the entire buffer
And the best part is, that you don't have to learn any new shortcuts but can continue using the ones you already used with more power. :)
I'm used to select text using line oriented visual Shift+V and then I press : an I have !perltidy -pbp -et4 somewhere in history so I hit once or more up arrow ⇧.

Is there any way to enable code completion for Perl in vim?

Surprisingly as you get good at vim, you can code even faster than standard IDEs such as Eclipse. But one thing I really miss is code completion, especially for long variable names and functions.
Is there any way to enable code completion for Perl in vim?
Ctrl-P (Get Previous Match) and Ctrl-N (Get Next Match) are kind of pseudo code completion. They basically search the file (Backwards for Ctrl-P, Forwards for Ctrl-N) you are editing (and any open buffers, and if you are using TAGS anything in your TAG file) for words that start with what you are typing and add a drop down list. It works surprisingly well for variables and function names, even if it isn't intellisense. Generally I use Ctrl-P as the variable or function I am looking for is usually behind in the code. Also if you keep the same copy of Vim open, it will search the files you have previously opened.
Vim 7 supports omni completion.
For example, I have this in my vimrc
autocmd FileType php set omnifunc=phpcomplete#CompletePHP
and then, when I press Ctrl-X Ctrl-O in Insert mode, I get a dropdown list of autocomplete possibilities.
Here's an omnicfunc for perl. No idea how well it works though.
Well, Vim's generic completion mechanism is surprisingly good, just using Ctrl-N in insert mode. Also, line completion is very handy, using C-x C-l.
Also check out this vim script for perl.
The standard Ctrl+N and Ctrl+P works even better if you add the following to your ~/.vim/ftplugin/perl.vim file:
set iskeyword+=:
Then it will autocomplete module names, etc.
The .vimrc clip in one of the other answers is slightly wrong. To turn your tab key into an auto-complete key, use this code:
inoremap <tab> <c-r>=InsertTabWrapper()<cr>
function! InsertTabWrapper()
let col = col('.') - 1
if !col || getline('.')[col - 1] !~ '\k'
return "\<tab>"
else
return "\<c-p>"
endif
endfunction
You can find this, and tons of other vim tricks in this thread at Perlmonks--which links to even more threads with lots more customizations.
You should look at the SuperTab plugin:
http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1643
It let's you do completion (either the OmniCompletion or the regular completion) using tab and shift-tab instead of ^N and ^P.
https://github.com/c9s/perlomni.vim
Ctrl+N
This is explained in the Perl Hacks book, along with how to do Package completion. Highly recommended.