appear in between the items.  Similar arguments are "skipnl", which allows a
line break in between the items, and "skipempty", which allows empty lines.
Notice that "skipnl" doesn't skip an empty line, something must match after
the line break.

==============================================================================
*44.7*	Other arguments

MATCHGROUP

When you define a region, the entire region is highlighted according to the
group name specified.  To highlight the text enclosed in parentheses () with
the group xInside, for example, use the following command: >

	:syntax region xInside start=/(/ end=/)/

Suppose, that you want to highlight the parentheses differently.  You can do
this with a lot of convoluted region statements, or you can use the
"matchgroup" argument.  This tells Vim to highlight the start and end of a
region with a different highlight group (in this case, the xParen group): >

	:syntax region xInside matchgroup=xParen start=/(/ end=/)/

The "matchgroup" argument applies to the start or end match that comes after
it.  In the previous example both start and end are highlighted with xParen.
To highlight the end with xParenEnd: >

	:syntax region xInside matchgroup=xParen start=/(/
		\ matchgroup=xParenEnd end=/)/

A side effect of using "matchgroup" is that contained items will not match in
the start or end of the region.  The example for "transparent" uses this.


TRANSPARENT

In a C language file you would like to highlight the () text after a "while"
differently from the () text after a "for".  In both of these there can be
nested () items, which should be highlighted in the same way.  You must make
sure the () highlighting stops at the matching ).  This is one way to do this:
>
	:syntax region cWhile matchgroup=cWhile start=/while\s*(/ end=/)/
		\ contains=cCondNest
	:syntax region cFor matchgroup=cFor start=/for\s*(/ end=/)/
		\ contains=cCondNest
	:syntax region cCondNest start=/(/ end=/)/ contained transparent

Now you can give cWhile and cFor different highlighting.  The cCondNest item
can appear in either of them, but take over the highlighting of the item it is
contained in.  The "transparent" argument causes this.
   Notice that the "matchgroup" argument has the same group as the item
itself.  Why define it then?  Well, the side effect of using a matchgroup is
that contained items are not found in the match with the start item then.
This avoids that the cCondNest group matches the ( just after the "while" or
"for".  If this would happen, it would span the whole text until the matching
) and the region would continue after it.  Now cCondNest only matches after
the match with the start pattern, thus after the first (.


OFFSETS

Suppose you want to define a region for the text between ( and ) after an
"if".  But you don't want to include the "if" or the ( and ).  You can do this
by specifying offsets for the patterns.  Example: >

	:syntax region xCond start=/if\s*(/ms=e+1 end=/)/me=s-1

The offset for the start pattern is "ms=e+1".  "ms" stands for Match Start.
This defines an offset for the start of the match.  Normally the match starts
where the pattern matches.  "e+1" means that the match now starts at the end
of the pattern match, and then one character further.
   The offset for the end pattern is "me=s-1".  "me" stands for Match End.
"s-1" means the start of the pattern match and then one character back.  The
result is that in this text:

	if (foo == bar) ~

Only the text "foo == bar" will be highlighted as xCond.

More about offsets here: |:syn-pattern-offset|.


ONELINE

The "oneline" argument indicates that the region does not cross a line
boundary.  For example: >

	:syntax region xIfThen start=/if/ end=/then/ oneline

This defines a region that starts at "if" and ends at "then".  But if there is
no "then" after the "if", the region doesn't match.

	Note:
	When using "oneline" the region doesn't start if the end pattern
	doesn't match in the same line.  Without "oneline" Vim does _not_