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I am very new to vim and would like to know if I could have a script in my vimrc file that automatically adds a ; to the end of every line.
The only exceptions is if the line has the strings for(, while(, #include, //, /*, */ etc.
I would like this to be turned on by default and toggled on and off via the shortcut Ctrl+;.
As has been stated, your list of exceptions is by no means comprehensive and you will probably find that this often creates more problems than it solves.
However, it's still doable and it was kind of fun to write out the code to do so, so here goes:
"When hitting Enter, if the line doesn't start with a /*, insert a semicolon
:inoremap <CR> <C-R>=match(getline('.'), '\s*/\*')==-1?';':''<CR><CR>
Feel free to expand this regex to capture your conditions above. I didn't want to write all of that out as I feel like it would obfuscate what I was writing and would still not be a complete solution for what your intent is.
You would probably want to only do this for certain filetypes, in which case you'd want to add the <buffer> argument to this command and do it inside an autocmd Filetype block.
To disable the mapping, you would say :iunmap <CR>
inoremap ; _ for those files. Gives me a slightly easier way to type underscores, but when I do type a semicolon at the end of a line, I notice the character change and instantly catch my error.
Mar 3, 2015 at 21:26
match(...)==-1 to ((match(...)==-1) || (match(...)==-1)). Instead of ||` you may have to escape them as <BAR><BAR>.
Mar 3, 2015 at 22:44
I think what you really want is an automatic syntax checking. Try Syntastic. The plugin shows you syntax errors so you don't have to go back and forth to the compiler to catch syntax issues like missing semicolons.
;, for example when breaking a function call with many arguments over 2 or more lines... Scripting all of these cases is difficult... You will quickly get used to adding the semicolons, so just hang in there for a little while :-)etc.in my exceptions. This is also why I want to toggle it on and off.;insertion could even be dangerous if it is not perfect (and no code is perfect). Imagine the following confusing set of lines:if (this > isfollowed by&& a + /* check */followed bythat * is_very(important |followed bysecurity | wise))followed bydo_something();. If your automatic;insertion makes a mistake and puts a;at the end of theif, then you immediately get a hard-to-detect security bug.#define UNTIL(x) while (!(x)). Then when you writeUNTIL(out_of_bounds), it's impossible to know if that's a function call and therefore needs a terminating;or a macro that expands towhileand therefore doesn't need a terminating;. If you do insert the;, you are in trouble.;, they wouldn't have added;to the language now, would they? ;) Since that's not possible, you can't have a program that correctly inserts it for you either.