CODEWITHSUNDEEP
vimvim-syntax-highlighting
Eashwar Gadanchi
Eashwar Gadanchi

Reputation: 305

Highlighting set of specific keywords in gvim

I have tried highlighting specific words by adding them in .vimrc, colorscheme file and also in syntax.vim(I changed one at a time, not altogether). 

syn match mygroupwords '\c\<\(-word1\|-word2\)'            
hi  def link mygroupwords colo_words12                                      
hi colo_words12  guifg=red1   gui=bold  guibg=white

But somehow it seems to be getting overwritten by default syntax highlighting

i need to highlight keywords irrespective of color-scheme or file-type which have following words- Ex; -word1 , -word2

Any suggestions?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 704

Answers (1)

Ingo Karkat
Ingo Karkat

Reputation: 172510

explanation of your failed attempts

A colorscheme just provides color definitions for predefined highlight groups; that's the wrong place for actual syntax matches! ~/.vimrc is the first configuration that is read; if a filetype is detected and a corresponding syntax script is loaded, that will override your syntax definition.

syntax extensions

If your desired highlightings are extensions to an existing syntax, you can place :syntax match commands in a syntax script in the after directory. For example, to extend Python syntax, put it in ~/.vim/after/syntax/python.vim. That may still fail if the original syntax obscures the match; sometimes, this can be solved via containedin=...

independent marks

If your highlightings are independent of syntax and filetype, there's a different built-in mechanism: :match (and :2match, and additional variants via :call matchadd(...)):

:match mygroupwords /\c\<\(-word1\|-word2\)/

This goes on top of (and is independent of) syntax highlighting. However, it is local to the current window. So, if you put this into your .vimrc, it will only affect the first window (but any files viewed in there). To apply this globally to window splits and tab pages, you have to use :autocmds. It's not trivial to get this totally right. If you need such a full solution, have a look at my Mark plugin; this supports multiple colors, allows presetting with :[N]Mark /{pattern}/ (similar to :match), and highlights in all windows.

Upvotes: 3

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