Tab key 4 spaces and auto-indent after curly braces in Vim

Question

How do I make vi-Vim never use tabs  converting spaces to tabs  bad    makes the tab key    4 spaces  and automatically indent code after curly brace blocks like Emacs does   Also  how do I save these settings so I never have to input them again   I ve seen other questions related to this  but it always seems to be a little off from what I want

User · Answer

The best way to get filetype-specific indentation is to use filetype plugin indent on in your vimrc   Then you can specify things like set sw 4 sts 4 et in  vim ftplugin c vim  for example  without having to make those global for all files being edited and other non-C type syntaxes will get indented correctly  too  even lisps

User · Answer

Firstly  do not use the Tab key in Vim for manual indentation  Vim has a pair of commands in insert mode for manually increasing or decreasing the indentation amount  Those commands are Ctrl-T and Ctrl-D   These commands observe the values of tabstop  shiftwidth and expandtab  and maintain the correct mixture of spaces and tabs  maximum number of tabs followed by any necessary number of spaces    Secondly  these manual indenting keys don t have to be used very much anyway if you use automatic indentation   If Ctrl-T instead of Tab bothers you  you can remap it    imap  lt Tab gt   T   You can also remap Shift-Tab to do the Ctrl-D deindent    imap  lt S-Tab gt   D   Here  T and  D are literal control characters that can be inserted as Ctrl-VCtrl-T   With this mapping in place  you can still type literal Tab into the buffer using Ctrl-VTab   Note that if you do this  even if  set expandtab is on  you get an unexpanded tab character   A similar effect to the  lt Tab gt  map is achieved using  set smarttab  which also causes backspace at the front of a line to behave smart   In smarttab mode  when Tab is used not at the start of a line  it has no special meaning  That s different from my above mapping of Tab to Ctrl-T  because a Ctrl-T used anywhere in a line  in insert mode  will increase that line s indentation   Other useful mappings may be    map  lt Tab gt   gt   map  lt S-Tab gt   lt    Now we can do things like select some lines  and hit Tab to indent them over  Or hit Tab twice on a line  in command mode  to increase its indentation   If you use the proper indentation management commands  then everything is controlled by the three parameters  shiftwidth  tabstop and expandtab   The shiftwidth parameter controls your indentation size  if you want four space indents  use  set shiftwidth 4  or the abbreviation  set sw 4   If only this is done  then indentation will be created using a mixture of spaces and tabs  because noexpandtab is the default  Use  set expandtab  This causes tab characters which you type into the buffer to expand into spaces  and for Vim-managed indentation to use only spaces   When expandtab is on  and if you manage your indentation through all the proper Vim mechanisms  the value of tabstop becomes irrelevant  It controls how tabs appear if they happen to occur in the file  If you have set tabstop 8 expandtab and then sneak a hard tab into the file using Ctrl-VTab  it will produce an alignment to the next 8-column-based tab position  as usual

User · Answer

edit your    vimrc    vim    vimrc   add following lines    set tabstop 4 set shiftwidth 4 set softtabstop 4 set expandtab

User · Answer

Related  if you open a file that uses both tabs and spaces  assuming you ve got  set expandtab ts 4 sw 4 ai   You can replace all the tabs with spaces in the entire file with    retab

User · Answer

Afterall  you could edit the  vimrc then add the conf set tabstop 4  Or exec the command

User · Answer

The auto-indent is based on the current syntax mode  I know that if you are editing Foo java  then entering a   and hitting Enter indents the following line   As for tabs  there are two settings  Within Vim  type a colon and then  set tabstop 4  which will set the tabs to display as four spaces  Hit colon again and type  set expandtab  which will insert spaces for tabs    You can put these settings in a  vimrc  or  vimrc on Windows  in your home directory  so you only have to type them once

User · Answer

The auto-indent is based on the current syntax mode  I know that if you are editing Foo java  then entering a   and hitting Enter indents the following line   As for tabs  there are two settings  Within Vim  type a colon and then  set tabstop 4  which will set the tabs to display as four spaces  Hit colon again and type  set expandtab  which will insert spaces for tabs    You can put these settings in a  vimrc  or  vimrc on Windows  in your home directory  so you only have to type them once

User · Answer

The best way to get filetype-specific indentation is to use filetype plugin indent on in your vimrc   Then you can specify things like set sw 4 sts 4 et in  vim ftplugin c vim  for example  without having to make those global for all files being edited and other non-C type syntaxes will get indented correctly  too  even lisps

User · Answer

Related  if you open a file that uses both tabs and spaces  assuming you ve got  set expandtab ts 4 sw 4 ai   You can replace all the tabs with spaces in the entire file with    retab

User · Answer

The auto-indent is based on the current syntax mode  I know that if you are editing Foo java  then entering a   and hitting Enter indents the following line   As for tabs  there are two settings  Within Vim  type a colon and then  set tabstop 4  which will set the tabs to display as four spaces  Hit colon again and type  set expandtab  which will insert spaces for tabs    You can put these settings in a  vimrc  or  vimrc on Windows  in your home directory  so you only have to type them once

User · Answer

The best way to get filetype-specific indentation is to use filetype plugin indent on in your vimrc   Then you can specify things like set sw 4 sts 4 et in  vim ftplugin c vim  for example  without having to make those global for all files being edited and other non-C type syntaxes will get indented correctly  too  even lisps

User · Answer

To have 4-space tabs in most files  real 8-wide tab char in Makefiles  and automatic indenting in various files including C C    put this in your    vimrc file     Only do this part when compiled with support for autocommands  if has  autocmd         Use filetype detection and file-based automatic indenting      filetype plugin indent on        Use actual tab chars in Makefiles      autocmd FileType make set tabstop 8 shiftwidth 8 softtabstop 0 noexpandtab endif    For everything else  use a tab width of 4 space chars  set tabstop 4         The width of a TAB is set to 4                        Still it is a  t  It is just that                       Vim will interpret it to be having                       a width of 4  set shiftwidth 4      Indents will have a width of 4  set softtabstop 4     Sets the number of columns for a TAB  set expandtab         Expand TABs to spaces

User · Answer

To have 4-space tabs in most files  real 8-wide tab char in Makefiles  and automatic indenting in various files including C C    put this in your    vimrc file     Only do this part when compiled with support for autocommands  if has  autocmd         Use filetype detection and file-based automatic indenting      filetype plugin indent on        Use actual tab chars in Makefiles      autocmd FileType make set tabstop 8 shiftwidth 8 softtabstop 0 noexpandtab endif    For everything else  use a tab width of 4 space chars  set tabstop 4         The width of a TAB is set to 4                        Still it is a  t  It is just that                       Vim will interpret it to be having                       a width of 4  set shiftwidth 4      Indents will have a width of 4  set softtabstop 4     Sets the number of columns for a TAB  set expandtab         Expand TABs to spaces

User · Answer

The best way to get filetype-specific indentation is to use filetype plugin indent on in your vimrc   Then you can specify things like set sw 4 sts 4 et in  vim ftplugin c vim  for example  without having to make those global for all files being edited and other non-C type syntaxes will get indented correctly  too  even lisps

User · Answer

Firstly  do not use the Tab key in Vim for manual indentation  Vim has a pair of commands in insert mode for manually increasing or decreasing the indentation amount  Those commands are Ctrl-T and Ctrl-D   These commands observe the values of tabstop  shiftwidth and expandtab  and maintain the correct mixture of spaces and tabs  maximum number of tabs followed by any necessary number of spaces    Secondly  these manual indenting keys don t have to be used very much anyway if you use automatic indentation   If Ctrl-T instead of Tab bothers you  you can remap it    imap  lt Tab gt   T   You can also remap Shift-Tab to do the Ctrl-D deindent    imap  lt S-Tab gt   D   Here  T and  D are literal control characters that can be inserted as Ctrl-VCtrl-T   With this mapping in place  you can still type literal Tab into the buffer using Ctrl-VTab   Note that if you do this  even if  set expandtab is on  you get an unexpanded tab character   A similar effect to the  lt Tab gt  map is achieved using  set smarttab  which also causes backspace at the front of a line to behave smart   In smarttab mode  when Tab is used not at the start of a line  it has no special meaning  That s different from my above mapping of Tab to Ctrl-T  because a Ctrl-T used anywhere in a line  in insert mode  will increase that line s indentation   Other useful mappings may be    map  lt Tab gt   gt   map  lt S-Tab gt   lt    Now we can do things like select some lines  and hit Tab to indent them over  Or hit Tab twice on a line  in command mode  to increase its indentation   If you use the proper indentation management commands  then everything is controlled by the three parameters  shiftwidth  tabstop and expandtab   The shiftwidth parameter controls your indentation size  if you want four space indents  use  set shiftwidth 4  or the abbreviation  set sw 4   If only this is done  then indentation will be created using a mixture of spaces and tabs  because noexpandtab is the default  Use  set expandtab  This causes tab characters which you type into the buffer to expand into spaces  and for Vim-managed indentation to use only spaces   When expandtab is on  and if you manage your indentation through all the proper Vim mechanisms  the value of tabstop becomes irrelevant  It controls how tabs appear if they happen to occur in the file  If you have set tabstop 8 expandtab and then sneak a hard tab into the file using Ctrl-VTab  it will produce an alignment to the next 8-column-based tab position  as usual

User · Answer

The recommended way is to use filetype based indentation and only use smartindent and cindent if that doesn t suffice   Add the following to your  vimrc  set expandtab set shiftwidth 2 set softtabstop 2 filetype plugin indent on   Hope it helps as being a different answer

User · Answer

As has been pointed out in a couple of other answers  the preferred method now is NOT to use smartindent  but instead use the following  in your  vimrc   filetype plugin indent on  quot  show existing tab with 4 spaces width set tabstop 4  quot  when indenting with   gt    use 4 spaces width set shiftwidth 4  quot  On pressing tab  insert 4 spaces set expandtab    In your   vimrc   1  file  set smartindent set tabstop 4 set shiftwidth 4 set expandtab  The help files take a bit of time to get used to  but the more you read  the better Vim gets   help smartindent  Even better  you can embed these settings in your source for portability   help auto-setting  To see your current settings   set all  As graywh points out in the comments  smartindent has been replaced by cindent which  quot Works more cleverly quot   although still mainly for languages with C-like syntax   help C-indenting

User · Answer

On many Linux systems  like Ubuntu  the  vimrc file doesn t exist by default  so it is recommended that you create it first   Don t use the  viminfo file that exist in the home directory  It is used for a different purpose   Step 1  Go to your home directory  cd    Step 2  Create the file  vim  vimrc  Step 3  Add the configuration stated above  filetype plugin indent on set tabstop 4 set shiftwidth 4 set expandtab   Step 3  Save file  by pressing Shift   ZZ

User · Answer

The recommended way is to use filetype based indentation and only use smartindent and cindent if that doesn t suffice   Add the following to your  vimrc  set expandtab set shiftwidth 2 set softtabstop 2 filetype plugin indent on   Hope it helps as being a different answer

User · Answer

On many Linux systems  like Ubuntu  the  vimrc file doesn t exist by default  so it is recommended that you create it first   Don t use the  viminfo file that exist in the home directory  It is used for a different purpose   Step 1  Go to your home directory  cd    Step 2  Create the file  vim  vimrc  Step 3  Add the configuration stated above  filetype plugin indent on set tabstop 4 set shiftwidth 4 set expandtab   Step 3  Save file  by pressing Shift   ZZ

User · Answer

edit your    vimrc    vim    vimrc   add following lines    set tabstop 4 set shiftwidth 4 set softtabstop 4 set expandtab

User · Answer

Related  if you open a file that uses both tabs and spaces  assuming you ve got  set expandtab ts 4 sw 4 ai   You can replace all the tabs with spaces in the entire file with    retab

User · Answer

As has been pointed out in a couple of other answers  the preferred method now is NOT to use smartindent  but instead use the following  in your  vimrc   filetype plugin indent on  quot  show existing tab with 4 spaces width set tabstop 4  quot  when indenting with   gt    use 4 spaces width set shiftwidth 4  quot  On pressing tab  insert 4 spaces set expandtab    In your   vimrc   1  file  set smartindent set tabstop 4 set shiftwidth 4 set expandtab  The help files take a bit of time to get used to  but the more you read  the better Vim gets   help smartindent  Even better  you can embed these settings in your source for portability   help auto-setting  To see your current settings   set all  As graywh points out in the comments  smartindent has been replaced by cindent which  quot Works more cleverly quot   although still mainly for languages with C-like syntax   help C-indenting

User · Answer

From the VIM wiki    set tabstop 4  set shiftwidth 4  set expandtab

User · Answer

As has been pointed out in a couple of other answers  the preferred method now is NOT to use smartindent  but instead use the following  in your  vimrc   filetype plugin indent on  quot  show existing tab with 4 spaces width set tabstop 4  quot  when indenting with   gt    use 4 spaces width set shiftwidth 4  quot  On pressing tab  insert 4 spaces set expandtab    In your   vimrc   1  file  set smartindent set tabstop 4 set shiftwidth 4 set expandtab  The help files take a bit of time to get used to  but the more you read  the better Vim gets   help smartindent  Even better  you can embed these settings in your source for portability   help auto-setting  To see your current settings   set all  As graywh points out in the comments  smartindent has been replaced by cindent which  quot Works more cleverly quot   although still mainly for languages with C-like syntax   help C-indenting

User · Answer

The auto-indent is based on the current syntax mode  I know that if you are editing Foo java  then entering a   and hitting Enter indents the following line   As for tabs  there are two settings  Within Vim  type a colon and then  set tabstop 4  which will set the tabs to display as four spaces  Hit colon again and type  set expandtab  which will insert spaces for tabs    You can put these settings in a  vimrc  or  vimrc on Windows  in your home directory  so you only have to type them once

User · Answer

Related  if you open a file that uses both tabs and spaces  assuming you ve got  set expandtab ts 4 sw 4 ai   You can replace all the tabs with spaces in the entire file with    retab

User · Answer

Afterall  you could edit the  vimrc then add the conf set tabstop 4  Or exec the command

User · Answer

As has been pointed out in a couple of other answers  the preferred method now is NOT to use smartindent  but instead use the following  in your  vimrc   filetype plugin indent on  quot  show existing tab with 4 spaces width set tabstop 4  quot  when indenting with   gt    use 4 spaces width set shiftwidth 4  quot  On pressing tab  insert 4 spaces set expandtab    In your   vimrc   1  file  set smartindent set tabstop 4 set shiftwidth 4 set expandtab  The help files take a bit of time to get used to  but the more you read  the better Vim gets   help smartindent  Even better  you can embed these settings in your source for portability   help auto-setting  To see your current settings   set all  As graywh points out in the comments  smartindent has been replaced by cindent which  quot Works more cleverly quot   although still mainly for languages with C-like syntax   help C-indenting

User · Answer

From the VIM wiki    set tabstop 4  set shiftwidth 4  set expandtab

[vim] Tab key == 4 spaces and auto-indent after curly braces in Vim

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