Enable %-key jumping/highlighting for backticks (`) and single-quotes (') in M4 files

Question

Background

When working on .c and .h files, I have a couple options turned on, namely:

filetype plugin on
filetype indent on
autocmd BufEnter *.c   setlocal tabstop=8 shiftwidth=8 softtabstop=8 textwidth=80 noexpandtab cindent cinoptions=:0,l1,t0,g0,(0

This enables a really useful feature for me: when I move the cursor over a bracket ([, ]), parenthesis ((, )), or brace ({, }) character, the matching "partner" (assuming my code is syntactically correct) is highlighted, and I can jump between the "partners" via the % key.

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Problem

I edit a lot of GNU M4 files, and the most commonly used delimiter/bracket-like characters are the back-tick (`) and single-quote (') characters. Unfortunately, I cannot highlight and/or jump between pairs like I can with brackets, braces, etc.

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Question

1. Is it possible to enable the matching/highlighting/jumping-to-partner features I've described for arbitrary pairs of symbols, assuming that start/stop characters are not the same (i.e. backtick and single-quote, in my case)?
2. Is it possible to enable the matching/highlighting/jumping-to-partner features I've described for arbitrary pairs of symbols, assuming that start/stop characters are the same (i.e. a pair of double-quotation marks)?
3. Does VI/VIM have the ability to detect escaped symbols, i.e.: could it match a pair of double quotation marks ("), but know to ignore double-quotes with a backslash immediately to the left (i.e. \")?

Answer 1

For question 1, try this:

set matchpairs+=`:'

See :help 'matchpairs'

This requires the characters to be different, so it won't help you with question 2 (or indeed 3).

For these latter two requirements, the short answer is that Vim doesn't provide this feature by default, and it will be tricky to implement well because it requires a greater understanding of context (and, ideally syntax,) than Vim currently has.

As a related aside, if you want to match things that aren't single characters, see also :help matchit.