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For example, if I want to have a file with the name gitconfig (no leading .) be recognised by vim as being of filetype=gitconfig, is there a means of indicating this in a comment or something similar within the file itself? Note, I want this to work across systems, so modifying vim's startup files is not preferred.

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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This sounds like the modeline feature (see the on-line help). In gitconfig you could have a modeline like the following, near the beginning or end of the file:

# vi: ft=gitconfig

This requires modelines to be enabled and since they can be a security hazard they are disabled by default on many systems though.

Another approach which might be slightly more work is to make a .vim file containing

au BufRead,BufNewFile */gitconfig setfiletype gitconfig

and drop it in ~/.vim/ftdetect on all your systems.

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  • Perfect, modeline is what I was looking for. modeline is enabled, but it looks like something else in my setup is interfering with it. If I put your suggested line at the top of the file, then after I reopen it set filetype? reveals filetype 'conf'.
    – Murali Suriar
    Aug 31, 2011 at 23:21
  • Maybe you can use :verbose set filetype to see where the conf value comes from - I would guess vim's system default filetype settings somewhere.
    – jw013
    Aug 31, 2011 at 23:43
  • apparently it was last set from /usr/share/vim/vim73/filetype.vim. Why would system level filetype detection override the directive I've placed in the file itself?
    – Murali Suriar
    Sep 4, 2011 at 0:15
  • were you running vim as root? if yes, I think the modeline wouldn't load.
    – elias
    Jan 7, 2013 at 20:15
  • Also check the value of the modelines option. :set modelines? If it's set to zero, it won't process the modeline.
    – Christian Long
    Jun 17, 2015 at 17:00
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You can create a syntax file and put it in vim's share/syntax directory (on Debian Lenny it's /usr/share/vim/vim71/syntax (your distro may vary)).

Documentation on Vim's syntax format is here: http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/syntax.html

You may be able to find a ready syntax file on the Internet somewhere, but I'll leave that as an exercise for you.

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