CODEWITHSUNDEEP
vimauto-indent
PonyEars
PonyEars

Reputation: 2254

vim: indenting bullet/lists within comments (in python)

vim indents lists (or bullets) within text files fine:

- this is item one that 
  is indented correctly
- this is item two that 
  is also indented 
  correctly

I can type gqap within the paragraph above, and the formatting and indenting work correctly.

However, this doesn't work within python comments, and gets indented like so:

# - this is item one that 
# is not indented correctly
# - this is item two that 
# is also not indented 
# correctly

If I type gqap within the python comment above, vim doesn't even recognize the bullet points. and ends up formatting the entire block into a paragaph.

So with respect to bullets and indenting, how do I get vim to behave the same way inside python comments as it does within a regular text file?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 930

Answers (1)

jarederaj
jarederaj

Reputation: 1390

This is actually a pretty hard problem that is not obviously documented even though it is very well supported by formatlistpat. I was able to support multiple styles of lists just by identifying formatlistpat and formatoptions as the settings I wanted to play with in my vimrc.

You can get a full overview with the following:

:help 'formatlistpat'
:help 'formatoptions'

Your working example indicates that you like the way that vim transforms the following:

- this is item one that 
is indented correctly
- this is item two that 
is also indented 
correctly

By entering gqap or gqip in normal mode you get the following:

- this is item one that is indented correctly
- this is item two that is also indented correctly

But there is a problem in that you cannot indent unorder lists in vim with your configuration if you are presented with something like the following:

# - this is item one that 
# is not indented correctly
# - this is item two that 
# is also not indented 
# correctly
# + this is item one that 
# is not indented correctly
# + this is item two that 
# is also not indented 
# correctly
# * this is item one that 
# is not indented correctly
# * this is item two that 
# is also not indented 
# correctly

In this case gpaq will incorrectly format to the following:

# - this is item one that is not indented correctly - this is item two that
# is also not indented correctly + this is item one that is not 
# indented correctly + this is item two that is also not indented  
# correctly * this is item one that is not indented correctly * this 
# is item two that is also not indented  correctly

You can immediately correct this indentation issue with the following:

:set formatoptions+=n
:set formatlistpat=^\\s*[\\-\\+\\*]\\+\\s\\+

Which will reformat your comment in the way that you intend:

# - this is item one that is not indented correctly
# - this is item two that is also not indented correctly
# + this is item one that is not indented correctly
# + this is item two that is also not indented correctly
# * this is item one that is not indented correctly
# * this is item two that is also not indented correctly

There are other lists you nay want to support too:

# a) this is item one that is not
# indented correctly
# b) this is item two that is also not
# indented correctly
# C. this is item three that is also not
# indented correctly

Can be correctly formatted with:

:set formatlistpat=^\\s*\\w[.\)]\\s\\+

The following:

# 1 this is item one that 
# is not indented correctly
# 2) this is item two that 
# is also not indented 
# correctly
# 33. this is item three that 
# is also not indented 
# correctly

Can be correctly formatted with:

:set formatlistpat=^\\s*\\d\\+[.\)]\\s\\+

The following:

# i. this is item one that 
# is not indented correctly
# ii. this is item two that 
# is also not indented 
# correctly
# iv) this is item three that 
# is also not indented 
# correctly

Can be correctly formatted with:

:set formatlistpat=^\\s*[ivxIVX]\\+[.\)]\\s\\+

You can put that all together with two simple lines:

:set formatoptions+=n
:set formatlistpat=^\\s*\\w\\+[.\)]\\s\\+\\\\|^\\s*[\\-\\+\\*]\\+\\s\\+

Upvotes: 5

Related Questions