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When a Vim option is also a Vim command argument, :help opens the command argument help page. How can I direct :help to get the option page?

For example, trying :help verbose opens the -V verbose command argument page, but I am looking for the in-editor verbose option documentation.

Note that when double-clicking on the verbose hyperlink in the command argument help, it opens the option help, but how to do it programmatically?

Trying these ended up with error:

:help &verbose
:help l:verbose
:help g:verbose
:help &l:verbose
:help &g:verbose
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11
  • :help 'verbose' is what you want. It's a duplicate though, so I'll mark it as such.
    – filbranden ♦
    May 6, 2020 at 10:11
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    I think this is a duplicate of this question
    – statox
    May 6, 2020 at 10:12
  • Thanks. I wonder why didn't this question come up in my search? By this time I found what I was looking for (see my answer below), but looks like it is only partially correct?
    – ysap
    May 6, 2020 at 10:14
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    @ysap about the search duckduckgo wasn't good but searching site:vi.stackexchange.com find option in help on google returns the duplicate question, so a good advise is to use external search engine to find your answers rather than the in site search :) And I think the main issue with your answer is the confusion between "option" and "command"
    – statox
    May 6, 2020 at 10:18
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    @statox Just for future reference, this is more clearly a duplicate than the one currently linked: vi.stackexchange.com/questions/438/shadowed-terms-in-help
    – Rich
    May 6, 2020 at 11:01

1 Answer 1

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So, searching for help on the :help command revealed the missing link. In order to get help on the option, one needs to search for the "tag" and add a : before the option name:

:help :verbose

Update: For the sake of future reference - this is incorrect, and the command should be:

:help 'verbose'
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  • That's the "verbose" command, not the option... (options are the ones you update with the :set command.)
    – filbranden ♦
    May 6, 2020 at 10:18
  • See my comment above.
    – ysap
    May 6, 2020 at 10:24

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