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The assigned character for comments is " for vimscript. But i want to change it to some other character (like * or # for example).

Based on this post, it seems like the string setlocal commentstring=\"%s in the file vim.vim (which is usually in /usr/local/share/vim/vimversion_number_here) is only to add appropriate comment tags around Vim fold markers (thanks to @BLayer in the comment for pointing this out).

But if possible, i would want to have a third character for comment (since # work for vimscript9 for comment, though i don't know where it's defined).

How could i do this?

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  • read my updated post, found a way on how to do it :P @BLayer
    – Nordine Lotfi
    Commented Sep 18, 2020 at 1:54
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    Really? Damn. That's awful surprising. It's not allowed in most languages I'm aware of.
    – B Layer
    Commented Sep 18, 2020 at 1:54
  • To answer the other part of your comment above, the same method i found apply for the other filetype (.c, .py, etc) since they have their own comment character assigned, in the ftplugin directory, as i described in my post. Thing is, i don't know how to set more than three different character for comment, as the same time (since the # char already work + " for vimscript) @BLayer
    – Nordine Lotfi
    Commented Sep 18, 2020 at 1:56
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    What I've read says this is only to add appropriate comment tags around Vim fold markers....i.e. dynamic and depending on current filetype...when, for instance, you add a fold with zf. Example: Comment out characters for zf I've never encountered this setting before, TBH.
    – B Layer
    Commented Sep 18, 2020 at 2:04
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    Interesting...I guess I'll edit my post to reflect this then :) thanks for looking it up! @BLayer
    – Nordine Lotfi
    Commented Sep 18, 2020 at 2:05

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It seems you're under the impression that the 'commentstring' option can be used to set which character or format is recognized as a comment in Vimscript... But that's not at all what it is about!

It's about telling Vim which format is recognized as a comment in the current language (as in, the current filetype), so that if Vim needs to insert a comment somewhere, it can use this option as a template.

See :help 'commentstring':

A template for a comment. The %s in the value is replaced with the comment text. Currently only used to add markers for folding, see fold-marker.

Even though it looks like Vim itself doesn't make much use of this option, it's also used by plug-ins that manage comments, for example vim-commentary leverages the option for its own configuration.

So, in short, same as you can't really change what a comment in C or Python or Java is, you can't really change what a comment in Vimscript is... It's part of the language, it's baked in.

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