I have a file called .aliases
for bash and zsh, I put this line
# vim: set filetype=bash:
but if I make
: echo &ft
I get conf
I have a file called .aliases
for bash and zsh, I put this line
# vim: set filetype=bash:
but if I make
: echo &ft
I get conf
That should work. I tried that line myself and it worked. I could be that your 'modeline' option got set to 'nomodeline'. Try executing this and see what you get.
:verbose set modeline?
That will tell you the value of the 'modeline' option and if not the default, where it was last set.
Some Linux distributions set 'nomodeline' in /etc/vimrc or /usr/share/vim/vimrc as a security measure, even though the security problems with 'modeline' have long been fixed.
modelines
that the option is UNimplemented and that it never will be. This is just like all the security bugs stemming from file-embedded commands or macro instructions to run in PDF, Word, Excel, &c&c&c.
I describe a full debug checklist in this other answer.
I was REALLY stumped on this one because the documentation is not entirely true.
It turns out that in version 8 (and maybe earlier) you cannot use the word set
in your modeline. The documentation describes "the second form" as being /* vim: set ai tw=75: */
but this does not work. You have to use "the first form" // vim: ai tw=75
Note: You can use either of those kinds of comment indicators. Or none at all.
set
works fine for me on vim 8.0 (although not on 7.4). Also worth noting that with the second form // vim: ai tw=75
, there cannot be any other characters at the end of the line, or vim will complain and ignore the modeline.
VIM - Vi IMproved 7.4 (2013 Aug 10, compiled Nov 24 2016 16:44:48) Inklusive der Korrekturen: 1-1689 Extra-Patches: 8.0.0056 Verändert von [email protected] Übersetzt von [email protected] Riesige Version mit GTK2-GNOME GUI.
(The last lines mean modified by ..., compiled by ..., huge version ...).
Commented
Sep 10, 2017 at 8:36
set modelines=1
(or any non-0 value) in my ~/.vimrc got it working for me.
modeline
is not also set (which it is by default in Vim unless you're root)
set nomodeline
in /etc/vimrc
due to all the vulnerabilities with modelines handling in vim.
Commented
May 23, 2014 at 13:43
modelines
to a non-zero value. The help says the default is 5
, so that's what I set it to and that did the trick for me. The states that, If 'modeline' is on 'modelines' gives the number of lines that is checked for set commands. If 'modeline' is off or 'modelines' is zero no lines are checked.
in ~/.vimrc you need to set following:
set nocompatible
filetype plugin on
set modeline
Adding just the following to my ~/.vimrc
worked for me on my Funtoo Linux box:
set modeline
Since this seems to come up in searches:
I had the same problem:
# vim: set filetype=sh:
didn't work, resulting in ft=conf as well. without the modeline in my ~/.bash_alias, ft is empty, so something changes.
while
# vim: filetype=sh:
worked. the last ":" presence seems to be irrelevant.
I'm on OSX with a Vim8 brewed version, for the records.
it's weird because from the modeline help both
[text]{white}{vi:|vim:|ex:}[white]{options}
and
[text]{white}{vi:|vim:|Vim:|ex:}[white]se[t] {options}:[text]
seem to be supported.
The output of
verbose set ft?
with "vim:filetype=sh" is
filetype=sh
Last set from modeline
without modeline:
filetype=
with "vim:set filetype=sh"
filetype=conf
Last set from /usr/local/Cellar/vim/8.0.1350/share/vim/vim80/filetype.vim
There might be a side effect somewhere in my conf, but the non compatible modeline syntax is the only one that works as expected for me.
/usr/share/vim/vim80/debian.vim
from vim-common
on Debian-based distros disables modeline
by default.
" modelines have historically been a source of security/resource
" vulnerabilities -- disable by default, even when 'nocompatible' is set
set nomodeline
You have to enable modeline
explicitly in your .vimrc
or ~/.vim/vimrc
file.
set modeline
set nocompatible
if you use that. On Ubuntu 18.04 and vim version 8.0.1453
~/.vim/.vimrc
? Saving as ~/.vim/vimrc
didn't work for me.
~/.vimrc
prioritize ~/vim/vimrc
. The latter won't be used if the former is found first.
.
) in the file name. ~/.vim/.vimrc
works, ~/.vim/vimrc
does not.
.
is needed, at lease in vim 8. Referred from the help within vim 8 :help vimrc
. Places for your personal initializations: Unix $HOME/.vimrc
or $HOME/.vim/vimrc
.
To make sure it works, set both options in your .vimrc
file (and towards to bottom in case you have a more complicated .vimrc
):
set modeline
set modelines=10
The 2nd option will control how many lines to check when searching for potential modeline lines. In case you need to use more than 10 such modeline lines, increase the value (10
in the example above)
And read also the NOTE in the documentation: :help modelines
:
NOTE: 'modeline' is set to the Vi default value when 'compatible' is set and to the Vim default value when 'compatible' is reset.
Now depending how complicated .vimrc
files one might have, changing the value of the compatible
option (either directly or indirectly by certain plugins, could also influence the modeline behaviour.
But your file should listen now to such comment lines (here an example from my ~/.zshrc
):
# vim: tabstop=2 shiftwidth=2 expandtab
Yup, even macOS, even as recent as Big Sur, still sets modelines=0
in the system-wide /usr/share/vim/vimrc
. So you need to set modelines=1
in your ~/.vimrc
to override this.
Most probably that's due to modeline being disabled.
I work around that by:
In this case, the default whitelisted commands include filetype
.