"vim-javac-filter" somewhere in your path
(e.g., in ~/bin) and make it executable: >
   #!/bin/sed -f
   /\^$/s/\t/\ /g;/:[0-9]\+:/{h;d};/^[ \t]*\^/G;

In English, that sed script:
- Changes single tabs to single spaces and
- Moves the line with the filename, line number, error message to just after
  the pointer line. That way, the unused error text between doesn't break
  vim's notion of a "multi-line message" and also doesn't force us to include
  it as a "continuation of a multi-line message."

						*errorformat-ant*
For ant (https://jakarta.apache.org/) the above errorformat has to be modified
to honour the leading [javac] in front of each javac output line: >
  :set efm=%A\ %#[javac]\ %f:%l:\ %m,%-Z\ %#[javac]\ %p^,%-C%.%#

The 'errorformat' can also be configured to handle ant together with either
javac or jikes.  If you're using jikes, you should tell ant to use jikes' +E
command line switch which forces jikes to generate one-line error messages.
This is what the second line (of a build.xml file) below does: >
  <property name = "build.compiler"       value = "jikes"/>
  <property name = "build.compiler.emacs" value = "true"/>

The 'errorformat' which handles ant with both javac and jikes is: >
  :set efm=\ %#[javac]\ %#%f:%l:%c:%*\\d:%*\\d:\ %t%[%^:]%#:%m,
	   \%A\ %#[javac]\ %f:%l:\ %m,%-Z\ %#[javac]\ %p^,%-C%.%#
<
						*errorformat-jade*
parsing jade (see http://www.jclark.com/) errors is simple: >
  :set efm=jade:%f:%l:%c:%t:%m
<
						*errorformat-LaTeX*
The following is an example how an 'errorformat' string can be specified
for the (La)TeX typesetting system which displays error messages over
multiple lines.  The output of ":clist" and ":cc" etc. commands displays
multi-lines in a single line, leading white space is removed.
It should be easy to adopt the above LaTeX errorformat to any compiler output
consisting of multi-line errors.

The commands can be placed in a |vimrc| file or some other Vim script file,
e.g. a script containing LaTeX related stuff which is loaded only when editing
LaTeX sources.
Make sure to copy all lines of the example (in the given order), afterwards
remove the comment lines.  For the '\' notation at the start of some lines see
|line-continuation|.

		First prepare 'makeprg' such that LaTeX will report multiple
		errors; do not stop when the first error has occurred: >
 :set makeprg=latex\ \\\\nonstopmode\ \\\\input\\{$*}
<
		Start of multi-line error messages: >
 :set efm=%E!\ LaTeX\ %trror:\ %m,
	\%E!\ %m,
<		Start of multi-line warning messages; the first two also
		include the line number.  Meaning of some regular expressions:
		  - "%.%#"  (".*")   matches a (possibly empty) string
		  - "%*\\d" ("\d\+") matches a number >
	\%+WLaTeX\ %.%#Warning:\ %.%#line\ %l%.%#,
	\%+W%.%#\ at\ lines\ %l--%*\\d,
	\%WLaTeX\ %.%#Warning:\ %m,
<		Possible continuations of error/warning messages; the first
		one also includes the line number: >
	\%Cl.%l\ %m,
	\%+C\ \ %m.,
	\%+C%.%#-%.%#,
	\%+C%.%#[]%.%#,
	\%+C[]%.%#,
	\%+C%.%#%[{}\\]%.%#,
	\%+C<%.%#>%.%#,
	\%C\ \ %m,
<		Lines that match the following patterns do not contain any
		important information; do not include them in messages: >
	\%-GSee\ the\ LaTeX%m,
	\%-GType\ \ H\ <return>%m,
	\%-G\ ...%.%#,
	\%-G%.%#\ (C)\ %.%#,
	\%-G(see\ the\ transcript%.%#),
<		Generally exclude any empty or whitespace-only line from
		being displayed: >
	\%-G\\s%#,
<		The LaTeX output log does not specify the names of erroneous
		source files per line; rather they are given globally,
		enclosed in parentheses.
		The following patterns try to match these names and store
		them in an internal stack.  The patterns possibly scan over
		the same input line (one after another), the trailing "%r"
		conversion indicates the "rest" of the line that will be
		parsed in the next go until the end of line is reached.

		Overread a file name enclosed in '('...')'; do not push it
		on a stack since the file apparently does not contain any
		error: >
	\%+O(%f)%r,
<		Push a file name