Customize vim for YAML

[Gary Fritz]

I'm doing some Ansible work (on RHEL 8), so I want the YAML configs for vim.  I have a yaml.vim file containing the syntax/etc, and a ~/.vimrc file:

autocmd BufNewFile,BufRead *.yaml,*.yml so ~/.vim/yaml.vim

autocmd FileType yaml,yml set ai ts=2 sw=2 et number

While logged in as user ansible, that worked just peachy.  But then I copied the same files to the same places under ~ (root), and when I was root (via su or su -), vim was clueless about yaml.

I tried changing the ~root/.vim/yaml.vim in .vimrc to ~root/.vim/yaml.vim -- no joy.

With some digging I discovered that vi doesn't read .vimrc when you're root but vim does!!??  But vim didn't work either.

Out of exasperation I tried rebooting my Linux server.  Now it doesn't work for user ansible either!!??

I tried :source ~/.vimrc and it kinda worked.  That picked up the .vimrc settings but not the syntax-highlight stuff in yaml.vim, even if I did a :e! to force it to re-read the file and see the file suffix.  But that only worked for root!?  And only a few times.  Now it doesn't work.  :source ~/.vim/yaml.vim doesn't do anything either.

Help?

[Gary Fritz]

I discovered vim -V, which dumps out a running commentary about what it's doing as it comes up.  On the second page I see this:

Executing BufRead Auto commands for "*.yml"

autocommand so ~/.vim/yaml.vim

chdir(/home/ansible/.vim)

fchdir() to previous dir

line 0: sourcing "/home/ansible/.vim/yaml.vim"

finished sourcing /home/ansible/.vim/yaml.vim

(That was for a non-root user, but root is the same.)

So it's definitely sourcing the yaml.vim file.  That means the .vimrc file must have been sourced.  So why don't I see the settings from .vimrc (set ai ts=2 sw=2 et number)?  And since it sourced the yaml.vim file, why isn't it highlighting syntax??  Especially since this used to work for non-root users!?

[Gary Fritz]

I got an answer from vi.stackexchange.com:

* I needed filetype on in .vimrc to get it to recognize the filetype.  (Don't think I had that before when it worked!??  And in fact once I had this all working, I deleted the filetype on and it still worked.  Go figger.)

* I needed syntax on in .vimrc to get it to highlight syntax.  (Also don't think I had this before, but I DO need this one.)

* I did NOT need the first autocommand to source ~/.vim/yaml.vim.  Without it, vim sources /usr/share/vim/vim80/syntax/yaml.vim.

* In the remaining autocommand they recommend I use setlocal instead of set, and sts=2 (softtabstop) instead of ts=2 (tabstop).

Works great now!