44Your own syntax highlighted

Vim comes with highlighting for a couple of hundred different file types. If the file you are editing isn't included, read this chapter to find out how to get this type of file highlighted. Also see :syn‑define in the reference manual.

    Table of contents

  1. Basic syntax commands
  2. Keywords
  3. Matches
  4. Regions
  5. Nested items
  6. Following groups
  7. Other arguments
  8. Clusters
  9. Including another syntax file
  10. Synchronizing
  11. Installing a syntax file
  12. Portable syntax file layout

44.1Basic syntax commands

Using an existing syntax file to start with will save you a lot of time. Try finding a syntax file in $VIMRUNTIME/syntax for a language that is similar. These files will also show you the normal layout of a syntax file. To understand it, you need to read the following.

Let's start with the basic arguments. Before we start defining any new syntax, we need to clear out any old definitions:

:syntax clear

This isn't required in the final syntax file, but very useful when experimenting.

There are more simplifications in this chapter. If you are writing a syntax file to be used by others, read all the way through the end to find out the details.

#Listing defined items



You can use this to check which items have actually been defined. Quite useful when you are experimenting with a new syntax file. It also shows the colors used for each item, which helps to find out what is what.

To list the items in a specific syntax group use:

:syntax list {group-name}

This also can be used to list clusters (explained in “Clusters”). Just include the @ in the name.

#Matching case

Some languages are not case sensitive, such as Pascal. Others, such as C, are case sensitive. You need to tell which type you have with the following commands:

:syntax case match
:syntax case ignore

The match argument means that Vim will match the case of syntax elements. Therefore, int differs from Int and INT. If the ignore argument is used, the following are equivalent: Procedure, PROCEDURE and procedure.

The :syntax case commands can appear anywhere in a syntax file and affect the syntax definitions that follow. In most cases, you have only one ":syntax case" command in your syntax file; if you work with an unusual language that contains both case-sensitive and non-case-sensitive elements, however, you can scatter the :syntax case command throughout the file.


The most basic syntax elements are keywords. To define a keyword, use the following form:

:syntax keyword {group} {keyword} ...

The {group} is the name of a syntax group. With the :highlight command you can assign colors to a {group}. The {keyword} argument is an actual keyword. Here are a few examples:

:syntax keyword xType int long char
:syntax keyword xStatement if then else endif

This example uses the group names xType and xStatement. By convention, each group name is prefixed by the filetype for the language being defined. This example defines syntax for the x language (eXample language without an interesting name). In a syntax file for csh scripts the name cshType would be used. Thus the prefix is equal to the value of filetype.

These commands cause the words int, long and char to be highlighted one way and the words if, then, else and endif to be highlighted another way. Now you need to connect the x group names to standard Vim names. You do this with the following commands:

:highlight link xType Type
:highlight link xStatement Statement

This tells Vim to highlight xType like Type and xStatement like Statement. See group‑name for the standard names.

#Unusual keywords

The characters used in a keyword must be in the iskeyword option. If you use another character, the word will never match. Vim doesn't give a warning message for this.


:setlocal iskeyword+=-
:syntax keyword xStatement when-not

The :setlocal command is used to change iskeyword only for the current buffer. Still it does change the behavior of commands like w and *. If that is not wanted, don't define a keyword but use a match (explained in the next section).

The x language allows for abbreviations. For example, next can be abbreviated to n, ne or nex. You can define them by using this command:

:syntax keyword xStatement n[ext]

This doesn't match nextone, keywords always match whole words only.


Consider defining something a bit more complex. You want to match ordinary identifiers. To do this, you define a match syntax item. This one matches any word consisting of only lowercase letters:


Keywords overrule any other syntax item. Thus the keywords if, then, etc., will be keywords, as defined with the :syntax keyword commands above, even though they also match the pattern for xIdentifier.

The part at the end is a pattern, like it's used for searching. The // is used to surround the pattern (like how it's done in a :substitute command). You can use any other character, like a plus or a quote.

Now define a match for a comment. In the x language it is anything from # to the end of a line:

:syntax match xComment /#.*/

Since you can use any search pattern, you can highlight very complex things with a match item. See pattern for help on search patterns.


In the example x language, strings are enclosed in double quotation marks ("). To highlight strings you define a region. You need a region start (double quote) and a region end (double quote). The definition is as follows:


The start and end directives define the patterns used to find the start and end of the region. But what about strings that look like this?


This creates a problem: The double quotation marks in the middle of the string will end the region. You need to tell Vim to skip over any escaped double quotes in the string. Do this with the skip keyword:


The double backslash matches a single backslash, since the backslash is a special character in search patterns.

When to use a region instead of a match? The main difference is that a match item is a single pattern, which must match as a whole. A region starts as soon as the start pattern matches. Whether the end pattern is found or not doesn't matter. Thus when the item depends on the end pattern to match, you cannot use a region. Otherwise, regions are often simpler to define. And it is easier to use nested items, as is explained in the next section.

44.5Nested items

Take a look at this comment:

%Get input  TODO: Skip white space

You want to highlight TODO in big yellow letters, even though it is in a comment that is highlighted blue. To let Vim know about this, you define the following syntax groups:

:syntax keyword xTodo TODO contained
:syntax match xComment /%.*/ contains=xTodo

In the first line, the contained argument tells Vim that this keyword can exist only inside another syntax item. The next line has contains=xTodo. This indicates that the xTodo syntax element is inside it. The result is that the comment line as a whole is matched with xComment and made blue. The word TODO inside it is matched by xTodo and highlighted yellow (highlighting for xTodo was setup for this).

#Recursive nesting

The x language defines code blocks in curly braces. And a code block may contain other code blocks. This can be defined this way:


Suppose you have this text:

while i < b {
	if a {
		b = c;

First a xBlock starts at the { in the first line. In the second line another { is found. Since we are inside a xBlock item, and it contains itself, a nested xBlock item will start here. Thus the "b = c" line is inside the second level xBlock region. Then a } is found in the next line, which matches with the end pattern of the region. This ends the nested xBlock. Because the } is included in the nested region, it is hidden from the first xBlock region. Then at the last } the first xBlock region ends.

#Keeping the end

Consider the following two syntax items:


You define a comment as anything from % to the end of the line. A preprocessor directive is anything from # to the end of the line. Because you can have a comment on a preprocessor line, the preprocessor definition includes a contains=xComment argument. Now look what happens with this text:

#define X = Y  % Comment text
int foo = 1;

What you see is that the second line is also highlighted as xPreProc. The preprocessor directive should end at the end of the line. That is why you have used end=/$/. So what is going wrong?

The problem is the contained comment. The comment starts with % and ends at the end of the line. After the comment ends, the preprocessor syntax continues. This is after the end of the line has been seen, so the next line is included as well.

To avoid this problem and to avoid a contained syntax item eating a needed end of line, use the keepend argument. This takes care of the double end-of-line matching:


#Containing many items

You can use the contains argument to specify that everything can be contained. For example:


All syntax items will be contained in this one. It also contains itself, but not at the same position (that would cause an endless loop).

You can specify that some groups are not contained. Thus contain all groups but the ones that are listed:


With the TOP item you can include all items that don't have a contained argument. CONTAINED is used to only include items with a contained argument. See :syn‑contains for the details.

44.6Following groups

The x language has statements in this form:

if (condition) then

You want to highlight the three items differently. But (condition) and then might also appear in other places, where they get different highlighting. This is how you can do this:

:syntax match xIf /if/ nextgroup=xIfCondition skipwhite
:syntax match xThen /then/ contained

The nextgroup argument specifies which item can come next. This is not required. If none of the items that are specified are found, nothing happens. For example, in this text:

if not (condition) then

The if is matched by xIf. not doesn't match the specified nextgroup xIfCondition, thus only the if is highlighted.

The skipwhite argument tells Vim that white space (spaces and tabs) may 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.

44.7Other arguments


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:


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):


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.


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:

	\ contains=cCondNest
	\ contains=cCondNest

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 (.


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:


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)


More about offsets here: :syn‑pattern‑offset.


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


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.

When using oneline the region doesn't start if the end pattern doesn't match in the same line. Without oneline Vim does not check if there is a match for the end pattern. The region starts even when the end pattern doesn't match in the rest of the file.

#Continuation lines and avoiding them

Things now become a little more complex. Let's define a preprocessor line. This starts with a # in the first column and continues until the end of the line. A line that ends with \ makes the next line a continuation line. The way you handle this is to allow the syntax item to contain a continuation pattern:

:syntax match xLineContinue "\\quot; contained

In this case, although xPreProc normally matches a single line, the group contained in it (namely xLineContinue) lets it go on for more than one line. For example, it would match both of these lines:

#define SPAM  spam spam spam \
		bacon and spam

In this case, this is what you want. If it is not what you want, you can call for the region to be on a single line by adding excludenl to the contained pattern. For example, you want to highlight end in xPreProc, but only at the end of the line. To avoid making the xPreProc continue on the next line, like xLineContinue does, use excludenl like this:

	\ contains=xLineContinue,xPreProcEnd
:syntax match xPreProcEnd excludenl /end$/ contained
:syntax match xLineContinue "\\quot; contained

excludenl must be placed before the pattern. Since xLineContinue doesn't have excludenl, a match with it will extend xPreProc to the next line as before.


One of the things you will notice as you start to write a syntax file is that you wind up generating a lot of syntax groups. Vim enables you to define a collection of syntax groups called a cluster.

Suppose you have a language that contains for loops, if statements, while loops, and functions. Each of them contains the same syntax elements: numbers and identifiers. You define them like this:


You have to repeat the same contains= every time. If you want to add another contained item, you have to add it three times. Syntax clusters simplify these definitions by enabling you to have one cluster stand for several syntax groups.

To define a cluster for the two items that the three groups contain, use the following command:

:syntax cluster xState contains=xNumber,xIdent

Clusters are used inside other syntax items just like any syntax group. Their names start with @. Thus, you can define the three groups like this:


You can add new group names to this cluster with the add argument:

:syntax cluster xState add=xString

You can remove syntax groups from this list as well:

:syntax cluster xState remove=xNumber

44.9Including another syntax file

The C++ language syntax is a superset of the C language. Because you do not want to write two syntax files, you can have the C++ syntax file read in the one for C by using the following command:

:runtime! syntax/c.vim

The :runtime! command searches runtimepath for all syntax/c.vim files. This makes the C parts of the C++ syntax be defined like for C files. If you have replaced the c.vim syntax file, or added items with an extra file, these will be loaded as well.

After loading the C syntax items the specific C++ items can be defined. For example, add keywords that are not used in C:

:syntax keyword cppStatement	new delete this friend using

This works just like in any other syntax file.

Now consider the Perl language. A Perl script consists of two distinct parts: a documentation section in POD format, and a program written in Perl itself. The POD section starts with =head and ends with =cut.

You want to define the POD syntax in one file, and use it from the Perl syntax file. The :syntax include command reads in a syntax file and stores the elements it defined in a syntax cluster. For Perl, the statements are as follows:

:syntax include @Pod <sfile>:p:h/pod.vim

When =head is found in a Perl file, the perlPOD region starts. In this region the @Pod cluster is contained. All the items defined as top-level items in the pod.vim syntax files will match here. When =cut is found, the region ends and we go back to the items defined in the Perl file.

The :syntax include command is clever enough to ignore a :syntax clear command in the included file. And an argument such as contains=ALL will only contain items defined in the included file, not in the file that includes it.

The <sfile>:p:h/ part uses the name of the current file (<sfile>), expands it to a full path (:p) and then takes the head (:h). This results in the directory name of the file. This causes the pod.vim file in the same directory to be included.


Compilers have it easy. They start at the beginning of a file and parse it straight through. Vim does not have it so easy. It must start in the middle, where the editing is being done. So how does it tell where it is?

The secret is the :syntax sync command. This tells Vim how to figure out where it is. For example, the following command tells Vim to scan backward for the beginning or end of a C-style comment and begin syntax coloring from there:

:syntax sync ccomment

You can tune this processing with some arguments. The minlines argument tells Vim the minimum number of lines to look backward, and maxlines tells the editor the maximum number of lines to scan.

For example, the following command tells Vim to look at least 10 lines before the top of the screen:

:syntax sync ccomment minlines=10 maxlines=500

If it cannot figure out where it is in that space, it starts looking farther and farther back until it figures out what to do. But it looks no farther back than 500 lines. (A large maxlines slows down processing. A small one might cause synchronization to fail.)

To make synchronizing go a bit faster, tell Vim which syntax items can be skipped. Every match and region that only needs to be used when actually displaying text can be given the display argument.

By default, the comment to be found will be colored as part of the Comment syntax group. If you want to color things another way, you can specify a different syntax group:

:syntax sync ccomment xAltComment

If your programming language does not have C-style comments in it, you can try another method of synchronization. The simplest way is to tell Vim to space back a number of lines and try to figure out things from there. The following command tells Vim to go back 150 lines and start parsing from there:

:syntax sync minlines=150

A large minlines value can make Vim slower, especially when scrolling backwards in the file.


:syntax sync match {sync-group-name}
	\ grouphere {group-name} {pattern}

This tells Vim that when it sees {pattern} the syntax group named {group-name} begins just after the pattern given. The {sync-group-name} is used to give a name to this synchronization specification. For example, the sh scripting language begins an if statement with if and ends it with fi:

if [ --f file.txt ] ; then
	echo "File exists"

To define a grouphere directive for this syntax, you use the following command:


The groupthere argument tells Vim that the pattern ends a group. For example, the end of the if/fi group is as follows:


In this example, the NONE tells Vim that you are not in any special syntax region. In particular, you are not inside an if block.

You also can define matches and regions that are with no grouphere or groupthere arguments. These groups are for syntax groups skipped during synchronization. For example, the following skips over anything inside {}, even if it would normally match another synchronization method:

:syntax sync match xSpecial /{.*}/

More about synchronizing in the reference manual: :syn‑sync.

44.11Installing a syntax file

When your new syntax file is ready to be used, drop it in a syntax directory in runtimepath. For Unix that would be ~/.vim/syntax.

The name of the syntax file must be equal to the file type, with .vim added. Thus for the x language, the full path of the file would be:


You must also make the file type be recognized. See “Adding a filetype”.

If your file works well, you might want to make it available to other Vim users. First read the next section to make sure your file works well for others. Then e-mail it to the Vim maintainer: <maintainer@vim.org>. Also explain how the filetype can be detected. With a bit of luck your file will be included in the next Vim version!

#Adding to an existing syntax file

We were assuming you were adding a completely new syntax file. When an existing syntax file works, but is missing some items, you can add items in a separate file. That avoids changing the distributed syntax file, which will be lost when installing a new version of Vim.

Write syntax commands in your file, possibly using group names from the existing syntax. For example, to add new variable types to the C syntax file:

:syntax keyword cType off_t uint

Write the file with the same name as the original syntax file. In this case c.vim. Place it in a directory near the end of runtimepath. This makes it loaded after the original syntax file. For Unix this would be:


44.12Portable syntax file layout

Wouldn't it be nice if all Vim users exchange syntax files? To make this possible, the syntax file must follow a few guidelines.

Start with a header that explains what the syntax file is for, who maintains it and when it was last updated. Don't include too much information about changes history, not many people will read it. Example:

" Vim syntax file
" Language:	C
" Maintainer:	Bram Moolenaar <Bram@vim.org>
" Last Change:	2001 Jun 18
" Remark:	Included by the C++ syntax.

Use the same layout as the other syntax files. Using an existing syntax file as an example will save you a lot of time.

Choose a good, descriptive name for your syntax file. Use lowercase letters and digits. Don't make it too long, it is used in many places: The name of the syntax file name.vim, filetype, b:current_syntax and the start of each syntax group (nameType, nameStatement, nameString, etc).

Start with a check for b:current_syntax. If it is defined, some other syntax file, earlier in runtimepath was already loaded:

if exists("b:current_syntax")

Set b:current_syntax to the name of the syntax at the end. Don't forget that included files do this too, you might have to reset b:current_syntax if you include two files.

Do not include anything that is a user preference. Don't set tabstop, expandtab, etc. These belong in a filetype plugin.

Do not include mappings or abbreviations. Only include setting iskeyword if it is really necessary for recognizing keywords.

To allow users select their own preferred colors, make a different group name for every kind of highlighted item. Then link each of them to one of the standard highlight groups. That will make it work with every color scheme. If you select specific colors it will look bad with some color schemes. And don't forget that some people use a different background color, or have only eight colors available.

For the linking use "hi def link", so that the user can select different highlighting before your syntax file is loaded. Example:

  hi def link nameString	String
  hi def link nameNumber	Number
  hi def link nameCommand	Statement
  ... etc ...

Add the display argument to items that are not used when syncing, to speed up scrolling backwards and CTRL‑L.