I'm trying to add an abbreviation to some strange language syntax I don't use often and always forget, for example, on all python buffers, i'd want
iab "else if" elif
Those are strange use cases for an abbreviation (most of them convert a phrase to a word), alas I can't think of a better feature to implement this in. But i cannot figure out how to start the aliasing with spaces.
As Vivian said, this is not possible. Instead, you'll have to analyse what is before the cursor on a if abbreviation. At that moment, you could replace it with the relevant suppression, if need be.
function! s:merge_elif() abort
let context = getline('.')[:col('.')-1]
let match = matchstr(context, 'else\s*if$')
" minus 2 because "if" is not considered already inserted
return !empty(match) ? repeat("\<bs>", strlen(match)-2) .'elif' : ''
endfunction
" I expect the abbreviation to not be global, but specialised for a specific
" filetype. Hence the `<buffer>` annotation: the abbreviation is expected to
" be defined in a filetype plugin.
inoreab <buffer> <expr> if <sid>merge_elif()
It is not possible to have abbreviation containing space :-/
And in particular:
Examples of strings that cannot be abbreviations: "a.b", "#def", "a b", "_$r"
