How do I enable syntax highlighting for .bash_aliases in vim?

Question

I'm working on reorganizing my .bashrc. I moved my aliases to .bash_aliases (which is sourced by .bashrc, but I can't figure out how to enable syntax highlighting for this file. vim seems unable to figure out what language the file is in. It works fine for .bashrc. Any ideas?

Solution 1

Go to vim and run:

:echo $VIMRUNTIME

Usually the value will be something like:
/usr/share/vim/vim72
Then edit (using root) the file /usr/share/vim/vim72/filetype.vim
Search for bashrc.
You will find a line that looks like this:

au BufNewFile,BufRead .bashrc*,bashrc,bash.bashrc,.bash_profile*,.bash_logout*,*.bash,*.ebuild call SetFileTypeSH("bash")

Edit the line and add your filename (.bash_aliases) to it.

That's it, now it should work.

Solution 2

The answer is in this: vimdoc - setf but to throw you a bone, if you just want the syntax & syntax highlighting to work you can do:

  :setf bash

Another possiability which I just realized when I was answering another VIM question was that you could also add this section to your .vimrc file and it would automatically enable syntax highlighting for the .bash_aliases file everytime you edit it without needing a modeline or having to manually type in :setf bash each time you open the file.

if has("autocmd")
  augroup bashalias
    autocmd BufRead,BufNewFile .bash_aliases set filetype=bash
  augroup END
endif

Thirdly as Mugen Kenichi below in the comments points out, you could also add a modeline to the .bash_alias file also as such:

# vim: set filetype=bash: 

Solution 3

Add the following line to ~/.vimrc (create it if it does not exist).

au BufNewFile,BufRead .bash_aliases call SetFileTypeSH("bash")

Comments

[matthias krull]

and/or add a modeline to your bash file vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/options.html#modeline

[Pharaun]

@Mugen Kenichi - Oh good catch there! I never use modeline but I've seen it in files before.

[icco]

This really helped me a lot, thanks guys. One thing I had to do, was I had to set the filetype to sh instead of bash, but I should probably just find a good bash vim file instead, as that would solve my problem as well :p

[cukabeka]

Perfect! This solved my problem.

[idbrii]

You shouldn't edit the vim distribution (files in /usr/share/vim). Your changes may be overwritten when you update vim. Instead, you should create your own script that does the same (or adding that line to your vimrc would do it).

[Bogdan Calmac]

My VIM 7.3 from cygwin also does not know about "filetype=bash". If you read through filetype.vim, "sh" is used as filetype for all other bash patterns.

[4wk_]

Despite the fact I think the .vimrc edit is more reliable, VIM modelines are just awesome! Thanks.

[Jinghao Shi]

I use vim 8 but I don't need the modeline (# vim ...). Just set the filetype to sh in my vimrc does the trick. Somehow the filetype should not bash but just sh.