Auto indent / format code for Vim?

Question

I'm trying to use Vim more and more when I can. One of my biggest grip between Vim and an IDE like Aptana is the ability to auto indent.

Is there a means of auto formatting code (HTML, CSS, PHP) so it is properly indented?

If so how do you install this into vim? I don't understand plugins very much. I tried reviewing this thread and it confused me more: How to change vim auto-indent behavior?

Answer 1

To indent the whole file automatically:

gg
=G

Explained:

• gg - go to beginning of the file
• G - go to end of the file
• = - indent

Answer 2

I don't know about auto-formatting existing code, but if you are writing code and need auto indent:

• :set autoindent (or :set ai) will turn on auto-indent
• Ctrl-d to un-indent (AKA outdent) your code
• Tab or spaces to indent -- I personally use tab
• :set tabwidth=4 (or :set tw=4) will control how many spaces a tab should indent code
• The >> command will indent the current line. If you prefix it by a number, say 4>> then it will indent 4 lines, starting with the current line.
• Likewise the << command will un-indent a line

I hope this gives you a good start.

Answer 3

Auto Indent *.sh

Just add the following lines in ~/.vimrc

filetype indent on
set smartindent
autocmd BufRead,BufWritePre *.sh normal gg=G

Answer 4

This plugin makes it easier to perform formatting on your code. It integrates external formatters, and has a fallback on vim's indent functionality.

https://github.com/Chiel92/vim-autoformat

Also, notice the difference between formatting and indenting. Indenting only corrects the whitespace before every line, while formatting also deals with any other thing, such as whitespace around operators etc.

Answer 5

Create/edit the ~/.vimrc file and add the following line:

set autoindent

Answer 6

vim's autoformat/indent works pretty well. First, put this line in your ~/.vimrc:

filetype plugin indent on

Then open a file in vim and type gg=G

(gg moves cursor to the first line. = runs the indent command. G tells indent command to run from here to the last line.)

If the autoformat looks really bad, like every line is just left indented, then run :scriptnames and check if .../indent/html.vim (or whatever language you're using) is in the list. If not, then make sure your ~/.vimrc is correct. Or if you ran :filetype plugin indent on from the vim command line, you will need to re-open the file :e

Answer 7

To do a bash script reformat, the gg=G solution proposed does not work well in VIM, irrespective if you set the script to be of shell type. Instead this works;

shfmt -i 2 -ci script.sh

To ident all lines with 2 spaces and do correct otherwise formatting.

Answer 8

For a good overview and demo of many of the options mentioned here, Gavin Freeborn has a great video on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM_uIwSucPU

It covers some Vim plugins as well as built-in capabilities such as =, gq, and formatprg.

Answer 9

In bash I do this:

source <(echo "Zibri () {";cat script_to_be_reindented.sh; echo "}")
declare -f Zibri| cut -c 5-|head --lines=-1|tail --lines=+3

this eliminates comments and reindents the script "bash way". it will not work if the script contains HEREDOCS but if you do this:

source <(echo "Zibri () {";cat script_to_be_reindented.sh; echo "}")
declare -f Zibri|head --lines=-1|tail --lines=+3

it will work with any script but the whole script will be indented by 4 spaces. feel free to modify but cite my name in your script and post it! :D