CODEWITHSUNDEEP
vimvim-plugin
Greg Ruhl
Greg Ruhl

Reputation: 1114

Extend vim file syntax to another filetype not working

I want to extend the filetype syntax and highlighting of an existing filetype. The basic structure of my new file syntax is as follows:

" Some local (new) syntax that I want to match
syn match   upfOperator "[&|~><!)(*#%@+/=?:;}{,.\^\-\[\]]"
syn match   upfDefines  "\$\S\+"
syn match   upfDefines  "\${\S\+}"
syn match   upfParens   "[)(}{\[\]]"

" load syntax that I want to extend.  This contains it's own highlight commands
runtime syntax/dtcl.vim

" New highlight statements
hi link upfOperator          Statement
hi link upfDefines           Constant
hi link upfParens            Constant

The problem is that all the syntax contained in the dtcl.vim file is NOT highlighting. I am able to open a dctl file and the highlighting works. However, when I open the other filetype (*.upf) the upf.vim is loaded but NOT the dtcl.vim.

The dctl.vim doesn't have any "if syntax defined" type commands that would cause the file to not load.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1069

Answers (1)

Ingo Karkat
Ingo Karkat

Reputation: 172768

If dctl.vim is a proper Vim syntax script, it does clear any existing syntax items (:syntax clear), as all syntaxes are supposed to be. Therefore, you have to move your own upf... definitions below the :runtime.

To properly load the existing syntax, you should use the following command:

runtime! syntax/dctl.vim syntax/dctl/*.vim

Your :runtime syntax/dctl.vim only considers the first occurrence and no syntax extensions.

Other than that, I see no problems with your approach, as long as you only add some new syntax elements which aren't covered yet (if they are, you probably need to use containedin=... in yours). You can use the :syn list command to check what's actually defined.

Upvotes: 2

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