How do I define an autocommand to work on all files excepted a certain filetype?

Question

For example, I have the following autocommand definition:

augroup cursorline
    autocmd!
    autocmd WinLeave,BufLeave * set nocursorline
    autocmd WinEnter,BufEnter * set cursorline
augroup end

I want to define something that excludes *.tex files:

autocmd WinEnter,BufEnter * "except *.tex" set cursorline

What is the syntax for that? I'm not sure what keywords to search the help docs.

Answer 1

In the same spirit as @Sundar answer but with a little more flexible syntax you can do:

let ftToIgnore = ['latex', 'plaintex']
autocmd BufWritePre * if index(ftToIgnore, &ft) < 0 | set your options

I tend to prefer this syntax because:

• You can easily add new filtetypes if you want.
• The condition length stay the same no matter how many filetypes you're checking.

Answer 2

How about:

autocmd WinEnter,BufEnter * if &filetype != "latex" && &filetype != "plaintex" | set cursorline | endif

better formatted as

autocmd WinEnter,BufEnter * if &filetype != "latex" && &filetype != "plaintex" 
                            \ | set cursorline 
                            \ | endif

This depends upon the filetype as detected or set by Vim, and so doesn't have any case-sensitivity issues. (You might want to check what your tex files are being detected as, by running set filetype? in Vim's commandline).

Answer 3

I didn't find anything that seems to support what you want, but you can do quite the same with a little bit of scripting :

function! s:ToggleCursorLine(open) abort
  let l:extension = expand('%:e')
  if l:extension !=? 'tex'
    if a:open
      set cursorline
    else
      set nocursorline
    endif
  endif
endfunction

augroup cursorline
  autocmd!
  autocmd WinLeave,BufLeave * call s:ToggleCursorLine(1)
  autocmd WinEnter,BufEnter * call s:ToggleCursorLine(0)
augroup end

Reference : :h expand()

Answer 4

This works for Syntax autocommands, where the pattern (<match>) is just the filetype. It excludes any rst files:

au Syntax *\(^rst\)\@<! …