vim modelines

I can never remember what those comments that change vim settings are called, and spend hours trawling through vim’s help.

They’re called modelines. :help modeline brings up the documentation.

Some typical modelines for copying and pasting:

//
// vim: tabstop=4 softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 noexpandtab tw=72
// run 'go fmt' before checking in your code!
//

Text files

# vim:tw=75
# vim:textwidth=75

Shell/Bash

# vim: ai ts=2 sw=2 et sts=2 ft=sh
# vim: autoindent tabstop=2 shiftwidth=2 expandtab softtabstop=2 filetype=sh

Ruby

# vim: ai ts=2 sts=2 et sw=2 ft=ruby
# vim: autoindent tabstop=2 shiftwidth=2 expandtab softtabstop=2 filetype=ruby

Python

# vim: ai ts=4 sts=4 et sw=4 ft=python
# vim: autoindent tabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab softtabstop=4 filetype=python

Or when using vi (eg on Solaris) INVESTIGATE FURTHER:

:set sw=4

Perl

# vim: ai ts=4 sts=4 et sw=4 ft=perl
# vim: autoindent tabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab softtabstop=4 filetype=perl

LISP/Scheme

; vim: ft=lisp