Is there a way to make vim display "virtual characters" before/after regular patterns in the buffer?

Posted by Laurence Gonsalves on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Laurence Gonsalves
Published on 2014-08-18T22:17:42Z Indexed on 2014/08/18 22:19 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 328

Filed under:

vim

|

vimscript

Vim has list and listchars options that make vim display "virtual characters" (by which I mean characters that aren't actually in the buffer) in certain situations. For example, you can make trailing spaces look like something else, or add a visible character to represent the newline character.

I'd like to be able to enable the display of certain characters either before or after certain regular patterns ((perhaps syntax items). Sort of like syntax highlighting, but instead of just changing the color/styling of characters that are in the buffer, I'd like to display extra characters that aren't in the buffer.

For example, I'd like to display a virtual : (colon) after all occurrences of the word "where" that appear at the end of a line.

Is this possible, and if so, what is the necessary vimscript to do it?

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about vim

Vim: Use different ~/.vim/plugin/ directories for different versions of vim?

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Like many of you, my custom Vim configuration is stored in my ~/.vimrc, with the plugins, colors, etc. stored under ~/.vim/plugins, ~/.vim/colors, etc. I want to share a single Vim configuration among many servers. Some of these servers run Vim 7, some run the older Vim 6. Most Vim plugins are intended… >>> More
Why isn't the scripts in my autoload folder being executed in Vim?

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I'm trying to use Pathogen to manage my Vim extensions. My bundle folder looks like this: .../bundle/ +-- vim-pathogen ¦ +-- autoload ¦ +-- pathogen.vim +-- vim-smoothscroll +-- autoload +-- smooth_scroll.vim And my vimrc file includes this: let s:root = fnamemodify(resolve(expand(":p"))… >>> More
Cygwin vim doesn't load files in runtimepath

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I created a custom syntax file, and but none of the files in $VIMRUNTIME seem to load. I followed these pieces of the documentation: http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/filetype.html#new-filetype http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/syntax.html#mysyntaxfile When I do :echo &runtimepath I… >>> More
Debugging matchit plugin in vim (under Cygwin)

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
The "matchit" plugin for vim is supposed to allow you to use the % key to jump between matching start/end tags when editing HTML, as well as /* and */ comment delimiters when editing other kinds of code. I've followed the exact instructions in ":help matchit", but % still doesn't work for me. It… >>> More
Vim: How to execute commands stored in a textfile opened in Vim

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I store, commands found at http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/browse, in a text file. If I open this text file in Vim and I want to execute the command where the cursor is actually located I do copy the line with Y, switching to command mode with : and !CTRL+r* Is there a more "lazy" possibility ;) >>> More

Related posts about vimscript

Checking if %Y exists in current file in VimScript [closed]

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
Like the title says. I would love to know how, with VimScript, I can do an if statement, that checks if %Y (for statusline) exists in the current file. This is what I have so far: if expand('%:Y') != "" let filetype=extend('%:Y') let filetype+= ",\ " else let filetype="" endif This… >>> More
vimscript: calling dictionary functions with call()

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'm hoping to call a "static" dictionary function using call(). By "static" I mean that the keyword 'dict' is not used in the function's definition. I use this nomenclature in the hopes that the effect of this keyword is to declare a static member function as is possible in java/C++/etc, ie to put… >>> More
Vimscript: how to get the current list of user-defined functions and determine the files they are so

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hello everyone. Is there a way I can query from within Vim information about user-defined vimscript functions and script files that Vim knows about? The things I'd like to know are: Is a particular function defined? Which source file is a given function defined in? What are the vimscript files… >>> More
Vim script to compile TeX source and launch PDF only if no errors

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi, I am switching to using Vim for for my LaTeX editing environment. I would like to be able to tex the source file from within Vim, and launch an external viewing if the compile was successful. I know about the Vim-Latex suite, but, if possible, would prefer to avoid using it: it is pretty heavy-weight… >>> More
dumping the source code for an anonymous function

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'm working with a lot of anonymous functions, ie functions declared as part of a dictionary, aka "methods". It's getting pretty painful to debug, because I can't tell what function the errors are happening in. Vim's backtraces look like this: Error detected while processing function NamedFunction… >>> More