Question

I am trying to learn VIM, buy I noticed when I try using the % command to go to a matching bracket, VIM sometimes finds the correct matching bracket and is sometimes way off. Has anyone ever come across this with a solution?

Answer 1

This happens because:

1. You have an actual syntax error with a mismatched paren or curly brace somewhere.
2. You have a value in cpoptions that prevents semi-intelligent brace matching. Look up :help cpoptions and :help %.
3. You have something too sophisicated for plain old Vim matching to handle. Try installing the matchit plugin, which may help. Common culprits are braces inside comments or regexes.