How to configure vim to not put comments at the beginning of lines while editing python files

Question

When I add a # in insert mode on an empty line in Vim while editing python files, vim moves the # to the beginning of the line, but I would like the # to be inserted at the tab level where I entered it.

For example, when writing this in vim

for i in range(10):
    #

the # does not stay there where I entered it.

It is moved like so, by vim.

for i in range(10):
#

Does anyone know of a configuration item in vim that would change this?

If it helps, I am using Ubuntu 8.10.

Entresol

See also: #191701 – Stella

simply use the command :set cinkeys-=0# indentkeys-=0# to remove 0# from the both settings (at most times, changing cinkeys is enough) – Billen

Answer 1

I found an answer here http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Restoring_indent_after_typing_hash

It seems that the vim smartindent option is the cause of the problem. The referenced page above describes work-a-rounds but after reading the help in smartindent in vim itself (:help smartindent), I decided to try cindent instead of smartindent.

I replaced

set smartindent

with

set cindent

in my .vimrc file

and so far it is working perfectly.

This changed also fixed the behavior of '<<' and '>>' for indenting visual blocks that include python comments.

There are more configuration options for and information on indentation in the vim help for smartindent and cindent (:help smartindent and :help cindent).

Entresol

Ah, I have "filetype plugin indent on" in my .vimrc, perhaps that's responsible for it working correctly for me. vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/filetype.html – Loos

is there any recommended/common configuration settings for cindent? – Carmeliacarmelina

This has annoyed me forever, and I finally took the 5 minutes to fix it (sounds like most vim problems, right?). Thanks for the breadcrumbs! – Antebellum

Answer 2

@PolyThinker Though I see that response a lot to this question, in my opinion it's not a good solution. The editor still thinks it should be indented all the way to left - check this by pushing == on a line that starts with a hash, or pushing = while a block of code with comments in it is highlighted to reindent.

I would strongly recommend filetype indent on, and remove the set smartindent and set autoindent (or set cindent) lines from your vimrc. Someone else (appparently David Bustos) was kind enough to write a full indentation parser for us; it's located at $VIMDIRECTORY/indent/python.vim.

(Paul's cindent solution probably works for python, but filetype indent on is much more generally useful.)

Hibbs

Thanks - this helped me out. I had one hitch, and that's I was trying "filetype indent on" within gvim (MacVim) and saw no behavior change. Once I started testing it by adding it to .vimrc, then restarting, I saw behavior change. – Metamorphosis

Same problem, tried accepted solutions (and permutations), placed 'filetye indent on' at end of .vimrc, and now #comment'ing python does not de/outdent. But now the thing autoindents for me. Sigh. – Laing

Turn off smartindent doesn't work for me (on both ubuntu vim and osx mac-vim). Adding "filetype indent on" to my $HOME/.vimrc and restarting [g]vim solve my problem (on both python and bash script editing). – Boleyn

Answer 3

I have the following lines in my .vimrc, seems to be installed by default with my Ubuntu 8.10

set smartindent
inoremap # X^H#
set autoindent

And I don't observe the problem. Maybe you can try this. (Note that ^H should be entered by Ctrl-V Ctrl-H)

Corney

This fix is outlined in the docs (:help smartindent). I think set autoindent is redundant; smartindent includes it – Extroversion

Answer 4

My solution to the unindenting of #:

If you use cindent, recognize that it is designed for C and C++ coding. Here, a # means you are creating a #DEFINE or #MACRO(), so the behavior is correct. But for other languages where # is a comment, it is irritating.

The following worked for me:

" cindent       enable specific indenting for C code
" set cin       nocin
set cin

" cinkeys       The default cinkeys causes leading # to unindent to column 0.
"               To prevent this, remove the 0# from the definition.
" set cinkeys=0{,0},0),:,0#,!^F,o,O,e - default
set cinkeys=0{,0},0),:,!^F,o,O,e

Frendel

For easy typing on the keyboard, the last command can be shortened to: set cink-=0# (i.e.: "remove (-=) the 0# entry from the list of entries in the cink[eys] variable") – Chandler

Answer 5

It's caused by the 'smartindent' feature. If you have :set smartindent in your .vimrc you need to remove it.

Confident

Answer 6

Some of the other answers were useful, but none were enough to prevent Vim from reindenting a line when '#' is the first character. PolyThinker's answer didn't work for me, but it gave a clue that '#' could be remapped to "insert a character, then #, then delete the extra character and put the cursor where it should be". This is the mapping that does that:

inoremap # X#<left><backspace><right>

This is needed because vim's syntax packages seem to treat '#' as a special character, no matter how the options are set. I want a line started with '#' to be the same as a line begun with any other character. The most reliable solution I've found is the above mapping, which actually does change the line's first character.

Note: I've found this mapping causes problems after running I#<esc> then pressing "." to redo the previous insertion. I haven't found a solution yet.

Fond

Answer 7

My Vim configuration doesn't do that. You might try the python.vim script available from this link: http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=790

Loos

Unfortunately, that did not work in my case, the problem persists while using it. I used version 2.6.3 because I have not yet upgraded to python 3.0. Perhaps the problem is in the /usr/share/vim/vim71/indent/python.vim file installed from the Ubuntu vim-runtime package? – Entresol

Answer 8

I removed set smartindent from ~/.vimrc but it still didn't disable smartindent. When I opened a .py file and ran :set smartindent? it displayed smartindent.

Turns out that further down in the ~/.vimrc was this line:

autocmd BufRead *.py set smartindent cinwords=if,elif,else,for,while,try,except,finally,def,class
                         ^^^^^^^^^^^

Once I deleted "smartindent" from that line, then smartindent was finally disabled and my comments were indented properly again.

Brockie