How can I add syntax highlighting to vim as I can do in gedit?

Question

When I write a script in gedit, the commands, comments, variables etc... are given different colors. How do I setup vim to do the same?

Answer 1

vim has an extensive support for syntax highlighting and typical distributions contain a number of highlighting rules. For enabling this you have to switch the syntax module on using :syntax on in your vim session or globally your .vimrc file.

See vim help on syntax for details.

Answer 2

Try :syntax on.

To have syntax highlighting enabled by default, add the following line to your ~/.vimrc:

syntax on

If the file doesn't exist, create it.