How do you use VIM to edit tabular data (tables)? Specifically, BIND (named) DNS db files.

Posted by Richard Bronosky on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by Richard Bronosky
Published on 2009-06-15T15:35:17Z Indexed on 2010/03/14 12:45 UTC
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I'm usually a purist when it comes to vimming. I don't like remapping keys, or learning to rely on a bunch of plugins. I like to feel just as powerful on foreign boxen as I do on my own dev box. I do, however, believe in syntax files. Even though the solution may not be a syntax file (bindzone.vim is what I use), I want it bad enough to do whatever.

I regularly view or edit tab (or comma, but that would be a bonus) delimited data. I hate having to set my tabstop to some ridiculous number in order to have everything line up. Example: The BIND zone files are ~40+,6,2,5,15+. So, even though I could view them on a single screen, if I set ts=40, I cannot. I have been searching for a "dynamic tab size" solution for years, but no luck.

I hate that my only good way of editing or even visualizing tabular data is to scp it to my work station and open it in Open Office. There has to be a better way.

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