Question

I read the docs, but got even more confused.
I have the following error generated by the compiler:

          rot;
          ^
"cpp\c1.cpp", line 13: error(114): identifier
          "rot" is undefined


1 error detected in the compilation of "c1.cpp".

I know how to detect the line where the error line is given, but I get loads of extra useless info in my errorlist, and the error message is split in two lines, whcih i would prefer to merge.

My starting errorformat is:

:set efm=\"%f\"\\,\ line\ %l:\ error(%n):\ %m

Since we are at it, is there a quick way of testing the efm without resorting to run make all the time?

Answer 1

First of all, I talk about debugging. Unfortunately, there’s no particularly easy way of doing it, but one useful possibility is to run make and spit the output into a file and then:

:let &makeprg="cat ~/outputfile.log"
:make

Regarding making the errorformat, this does require a bit of trial and error. You can use %A, %C and %Z for multiline messages and you can use %-G to ignore stuff. The order is very important and note that sometimes the %C or even %Z come before the %A! In your case, you may be able to get somewhere with the efm below. I tend to use let &efm = and let &efm .= rather than set as you don’t have to escape every space or quotation mark and you can build it up gradually. It’s also much more readable.

" Start of the multi-line error message (%A),
" %p^ means a string of spaces and then a ^ to
" get the column number
let &efm  = '%A%p^' . ','
" Next is the main bit: continuation of the error line (%C)
" followed by the filename in quotes, a comma (\,)
" then the rest of the details
let &efm .= '%C"%f"\, line %l: error(%n): %m' . ','
" Next is the last line of the error message, any number
" of spaces (' %#': equivalent to ' *') followed by a bit
" more error message
let &efm .= '%Z %#%m' . ','
" This just ignores any other lines (must be last!)
let &efm .= '%-G%.%#'