Why does vim not obey my expandtab in python files?

by

The problem is that your settings are being overridden by a filetype plugin that’s part of Vim. The issue is in ftplugin/python.vim:

" As suggested by PEP8.
setlocal expandtab shiftwidth=4 softtabstop=4 tabstop=8

The python plugin attempts to setup your source code to be PEP8 compliant by default, so it’s adjusting the tabstop. You’ll want some of what these plugins have to offer, but you may need to setup your own autocommands to fixup anything you don’t like.

There are two ways to go about doing this. If you have a ~/.vim folder, the easiest way is to add the file ~/.vim/after/ftplugin/python.vim:

" Here, you can set the setting directly, or call a command or function
" to help you.  We'll call a command, and then implement that command in
" your top-level vimrc to help keep things in one place.
SetupPython

In your .vimrc, add:

function! SetupPython()
    " Here, you can have the final say on what is set.  So
    " fixup any settings you don't like.
    setlocal softtabstop=2
    setlocal tabstop=2
    setlocal shiftwidth=2
endfunction
command! -bar SetupPython call SetupPython()

The latter bit just allows you to call the function as SetupPython rather than call SetupPython() in the after file.

The other way, is to keep everything in your .vimrc, but you use the VimEnter autocommand to setup a FileType autocommand for python to set your preferences. By waiting until VimEnter is triggered, all the other plugins will have had time to setup their autocommands, so your’s will be added to the end of the list. This allows you to run after the python plugin’s FileType autocommand and set your own settings. This is a bit of a mess though, and the after/ mechanism above is the preferred way of doing this.

FWIW, many common settings I keep in a SetupSource() function to be called from a number of different FileTypes. Then I’d have SetupPython() call SetupSource(). This helps to keep the specific functions a little cleaner and reduce some duplication. If it helps, take a look at the functions in my vimfiles here: https://github.com/jszakmeister/vimfiles/blob/master/vimrc#L5328

More Related Contents:

  1. Turning off auto indent when pasting text into vim
  2. Indent multiple lines quickly in vi
  3. Tab key == 4 spaces and auto-indent after curly braces in Vim
  4. Indenting in VIM with all the files in Folder
  5. Remove all arbitary spaces before a line in Vim
  6. Is it possible to display indentation guides in Vim?
  7. How do I fix the indentation of an entire file in Vi?
  8. How to make vim paste from (and copy to) system’s clipboard?
  9. Vim and Ctags tips and tricks [closed]
  10. vim change :x function to delete buffer instead of save & quit
  11. How do I exit Vim?
  12. How does the vim “write with sudo” trick work?
  13. What is the difference between the remap, noremap, nnoremap and vnoremap mapping commands in Vim?
  14. Vim 80 column layout concerns
  15. How to stop vim from adding a newline at end of file?
  16. How to convert the ^M linebreak to ‘normal’ linebreak in a file opened in vim?
  17. How do I run a terminal inside of Vim?
  18. How do I use vim registers?
  19. Why ci” and ci(, ci{…. behave differently?
  20. Saving vim macros
  21. What is the in a .vimrc file?
  22. How to effectively work with multiple files in Vim
  23. How to edit multi-gigabyte text files? Vim doesn’t work =( [closed]
  24. Auto-open NERDTree in “EVERY” tab
  25. Replace tabs with spaces in vim
  26. Multiple commands on same line
  27. Case preserving substitute in Vim
  28. Setting Vim whitespace preferences by filetype
  29. Vim run autocmd on all filetypes EXCEPT
  30. Cut to the system clipboard from Vim on Ubuntu

Leave a Comment