Remove automatic comment leader

Question

When I press return at the end of a comment line, vim will automatically insert the comment leader on the next line as well:

// My comment bla bla
// ‸

I like this feature and I would like to leave it switched on. However, quite often, I also want to write uncommented code on the next line. Is there an easy way to configure vim in such a way that pressing backspace once in this position will remove the whole comment leader? I find it at little bit annoying to always have to press backspace three times.

Answer 1

You can accomplish this with a simple mapping;

inoremap <silent><expr> <bs> getline('.') =~# '^//\s*$' ? "<c-u>" : "<bs>"

Note that if your backspace setting includes start, this will delete the comment regardless of whether it was automatically entered or not.

Alternatively, here is a slightly different workflow. I use the following snippet; pressing <cr> will insert the comment leader, pressing shift+<cr> will not. Note that not all terminals support this key combination.

execute "set <f26>=\<esc>OM"

inoremap <silent><expr> <f26>
    \ synIDattr(synID(line('.'), col('.')-1, 1), 'name') =~? 'comment'
    \ ? "<cr><c-u>"
    \ : "<cr>"

Answer 2

set fo-=or

These options remove adding the comment leader automatically when pressing o or O in Normal mode, and when pressing in Insert mode respectively.

see fo-table in vim help :h fo-table