Question

I have a file that looks something like this

def foo bar {{
   // some stuff in here that shouldn't have }}; in it
}};

And I’d like to syntax highlight certain types of these blocks. My first order approximation was this:

highlight DefFoo ctermfg=darkgreen                  
let defFoo = 'def foo .* {{.*}};'             
call matchadd('DefFoo', defFoo)     

However, the only stuff that gets highlighted is the first line def foo bar {{ . I’ve been trying to find a way to execute a matchadd that searches globally, but I’ve been failing. Is there a way to do this?

Answer 1

The . does not match new lines. \_. does on the other hand. So your pattern would be:

def foo \_.* {{\_.*}};

I find for one off matches using something like the following to be nice:

:match Error /foo-pattern-here/

It can be cleared with

:match

Note that :match with an expensive pattern may cause the matched text to not highlight properly on some screen redraws. Either adjust your pattern or up your 'redrawtime'

For more information:

:h :match
:h /\_.