Adding Filetype Recognition in Vim

preferences. The b:undo_ftplugin variable is executed as a command. Watch out for characters with a special meaning inside a string, such as a backslash. You can find examples for filetype plugins in this directory: > $VIMRUNTIME/ftplugin/ More details about writing a filetype plugin can be found here: |write-plugin|. ============================================================================== *43.2* Adding a filetype If you are using a type of file that is not recognized by Vim, this is how to get it recognized. You need a runtime directory of your own. See |your-runtime-dir| above. Create a file "filetype.vim" which contains an autocommand for your filetype. (Autocommands were explained in section |40.3|.) Example: > augroup filetypedetect au BufNewFile,BufRead *.xyz setf xyz augroup END This will recognize all files that end in ".xyz" as the "xyz" filetype. The ":augroup" commands put this autocommand in the "filetypedetect" group. This allows removing all autocommands for filetype detection when doing ":filetype off". The "setf" command will set the 'filetype' option to its argument, unless it was set already. This will make sure that 'filetype' isn't set twice. You can use many different patterns to match the name of your file. Directory names can also be included. See |autocmd-pattern|. For example, the files under "/usr/share/scripts/" are all "ruby" files, but don't have the expected file name extension. Adding this to the example above: > augroup filetypedetect au BufNewFile,BufRead *.xyz setf xyz au BufNewFile,BufRead /usr/share/scripts/* setf ruby augroup END However, if you now edit a file /usr/share/scripts/README.txt, this is not a ruby file. The danger of a pattern ending in "*" is that it quickly matches too many files. To avoid trouble with this, put the filetype.vim file in another directory, one that is at the end of 'runtimepath'. For Unix for example, you could use "~/.config/nvim/after/filetype.vim". You now put the detection of text files in ~/.config/nvim/filetype.vim: > augroup filetypedetect au BufNewFile,BufRead *.txt setf text augroup END That file is found in 'runtimepath' first. Then use this in ~/.config/nvim/after/filetype.vim, which is found last: > augroup filetypedetect au BufNewFile,BufRead /usr/share/scripts/* setf ruby augroup

This section explains how to add recognition for new file types in Vim. It details creating a 'filetype.vim' file with autocommands to detect file types based on patterns (e.g., file extensions) and the importance of managing the order in which filetype detection occurs to avoid conflicts, especially when using broad patterns.