valign.nvim

Install

Vim

• Check if the vim version support plugin and script.
• Check if the directory ~/.vim/plugin exists.

curl -LO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/riku-ri/valign.nvim/main/plugin/valign.vim --output-dir ~/.vim/plugin

Neovim

• lazy.nvim

   {"riku-ri/valign.nvim"}

Or any other similar plugin manager. Just add the full repository name without any options.

Basic usage

1. In visual mode, select lines to be aligned
2. Type : to go into command mode with selected range, now the command line in vim should be with range, i.e. shows :'<,'>. In the next step, just type command after it
3. Run command for the range :

   The indent at the head of each line should always be ignored, all words will be aligned as no indent and insert the indent later.

   • Valign : align all words splited by white space
   • Vsqueeze : make all words splited by single space character

Align by syntax

This plugin has a basic syntax-align command Vsyntax0. It groups each word splited by white space by thier syntax code i.e. synID() :

• synID() is 0
• synID() is not 0

And then align each group.

E.g.

For C language code blocks :

int     i  = 8  * anot     ;
static unsigned short    cs =   26 + 8 - anot ;  /**/
inline char gzjsyldpr[]   =  "uieiuhiongaiaoe"     nocat ;

In some version of (neo)vim, C language operators were assigned to syntax code 0. So :'<,'>Vsyntax will generate :

int                   i =           8                 * anot ;
static unsigned short cs =          26                +        8 - anot ; /**/
inline char           gzjsyldpr[] = "uieiuhiongaiaoe" nocat ;

Here = * + is assigned to syntax code 0 so they were grouped with variables together. And strings/numbers after them were another group so they were at another align.

And if operators are set to cOperator highlight group :

:syntax match cOperator "?\|+\|-\|\*\|;\|:\|,\|<\|>\|&\||\|!\|\~\|%\|=\|)\|(\|{\|}\|\.\|\[\|\]\|/\(/\|*\)\@!"

:'<,'>Vsyntax will generate the expected block :

int                   i           = 8 *               anot  ;
static unsigned short cs          = 26 + 8 -          anot  ; /**/
inline char           gzjsyldpr[] = "uieiuhiongaiaoe" nocat ;

About multibyte characters

Follow strdisplaywidth() directly. :help strdisplaywidth() for more ditailes.