Question

I’m using Vim and editing Python scripts.

Autoindent works pretty well in general, but when I start a new line and type ‘#’ to type a comment, Vim unindents that line for me.

For example, if have

def foo():

and I press enter, Vim will indent properly

def foo():
    pass

but, if instead of typing pass, I type #, it unindents automatically

def foo():
# comment

class Thing():
    def __init__(self):
         pass
# comment line gets unindented all the way

my .vimrc file follows. anyone know why this is happening?

set tabstop=4
set smartindent
set shiftwidth=4
set expandtab
set backspace=indent,eol,start
set scrolloff=3
set statusline=%f%m%r%h%w\ [%Y\ %{&ff}]\ [%l/%L\ (%p%%)]
set laststatus=2

Answer 1

Setting smartindent on makes Vim behave like you describe for me, whereas with nosmartindent (which is what I tend to use) it behaves like you’d prefer it to.

Update: From the docs on smartindent:

When typing ‘#’ as the first character in a new line, the indent for
that line is removed, the ‘#’ is put in the first column. The indent
is restored for the next line. If you don’t want this, use this
mapping: “:inoremap # X^H#”, where ^H is entered with CTRL-V CTRL-H.
When using the “>>” command, lines starting with ‘#’ are not shifted
right.

That seems to be it.

---

Update: Probably no need to bother with the following… I’ll leave it here for the added informational value. 😉

If setting nosmartindent doesn’t help, perhaps you could use the :set command — with no parameters — to obtain the list of all settings in effect in your Vim session, then paste it somewhere (on Pastie perhaps). There’s a few other options which affect automatic indentation, as far as I remember.