CursorLineNR highlight not working

Question

I have a vim configuration file (~/.vimrc) with the following settings:

colo delek
syntax on

highlight clear CursorLine
highlight clear CursorLineNR
highlight clear LineNR

highlight LineNR cterm=none ctermfg=Yellow ctermbg=none
highlight CursorLineNR cterm=bold ctermfg=Black ctermbg=none

This used to work fine, highlighting the current line number in Black, while the others remained Yellow. After I read about syntax enable, I tried it, replacing the syntax on command. Since then, the CursorLineNR highlighting has refused to work. I have tried changing changing the syntax command to off, enable and on in all orders but to no avail. I even tried changing the CursorLineNR from the command-line mode but that too doesn't work. It has to be noted though that the LineNR functionality works perfectly fine.

I work on a Macbook Air, with the following vim version:

VIM - Vi IMproved 8.0 (2016 Sep 12, compiled Nov 29 2017 18:37:46)
Included patches: 1-503, 505-680, 682-1283

Answer 1

I think this is a bug. I my case, in vim 8.2, I can't highlight CursorLineNR when 'relativenumber' is set.

From the doc:

CursorLineNr Like LineNr when 'cursorline' is set and 'cursorlineopt' is set to "number" or "both", or 'relativenumber' is set, for the cursor line.

So, here's my workaround:

• set 'cursorline'
• highlight cursorline with the same values as for 'normal'
• then highlight 'cursorlinenr'

I hope this helps :)

Answer 2

In Vim you need to set number highlighting on first:

if !has('nvim')
    set cursorline
    set cursorlineopt=number
endif

highlight LineNR cterm=none ctermfg=Yellow ctermbg=none
highlight CursorLineNR cterm=bold ctermfg=Black ctermbg=none

Neovim behaves slightly differently in that cursorlineopt doesn't exist and set cursorline will act as set cursorline | set cursorlineopt=both in Vim.