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In vimscript, how can I get the column that the cursor is currently on? I would like to save this value in a variable.

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You've got col('.') and virtcol('.').

  • The first one is to be used most of the time. It doesn't return the actual column number, but the byte index the cursor is on in the current line.
  • The second one returns the actual column number

The tricky part is that sometimes a tab (1 byte) expand up to &ts columns, and a multibyte character have more than 1 byte that expand over only one column.

You'll need to read their documentation to know what you exactly need depending on what you do with that number after.

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  • so to get the column of the cursor, the commands would be col(".") and virtcol(".")
    – Trevor
    Dec 11, 2018 at 4:22
  • Additionally, the commands getpos(".") and getcurpos() return a list of position values, with the 3rd element being column
    – Trevor
    Dec 15, 2018 at 6:24
  • Would you mind modifying your answer to be col(".") and virtcol(".")? Then I will accept it.
    – Trevor
    Dec 15, 2018 at 22:47
  • Of course. Done.
    – Luc Hermitte
    Dec 15, 2018 at 22:55
  • But how to get the column offset to the left border of the current window?
    – NeoZoom.lua
    Mar 26 at 7:26

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