Question

I’m after a means by which I can add additional commands to a text file via vim. For example, just as you can do something like this:

# vim:syntax=foo

I’d like to do something like:

# vim:option call matchadd('Special', '\(REQUIRED\|OPTIONAL\)')

Any ideas? I know I can write a syntax file, but this is not what I’m after for now.

Answer 1

Vim modeline syntax (see :help modeline) is not intended to specify commands
to execute during file opening. That is exactly what autocommands is for (see
:help autocommand). What you are trying to do should be an autocommand
similar the following.

autocmd FileType foo call matchadd('Special', '\(REQUIRED\|OPTIONAL\)')

or

autocmd BufReadPost *.foo call matchadd('Special', '\(REQUIRED\|OPTIONAL\)')

(Here instead of *.foo you can use any pattern that matches path or filename
(or both) of the target file.)

If the configuration you are setting up is local to some files or a project,
and you don’t want to pollute your .vimrc with those autocmds, use
localvimrc plugin. It allows you to have a “local” .vimrc file next to
your target file or project folder. Script stored in that .lvimrc is
executed when you open files in the same directory where the “local” .vimrc
is, or in its subdirectories. Autocommands shown above (or any other
configurations) can be stored in a .lvimrc file local the project. For
details about localvimrc configuration see the homepage of the plugin.