How to use a template in vim

Question

This is really a newbie question - but basically, how do I enable a template for certain filetypes.

Basically, I just want the template to insert a header of sorts,

Answer 1

Assume that your skeletons are in your ~/.vim/templates/ directory, you can put this snippet in your vimrc file.

augroup templates
  au!
  " read in templates files
  autocmd BufNewFile *.* silent! execute '0r ~/.vim/templates/skeleton.'.expand(":e")
augroup END

Some explanation,

• BufNewFile . = each time we edit a new file
• silent! execute = execute silently, no error messages if failed
• 0r = read file and insert content at top (0) in the new file
• expand(":e") = get extension of current filename

see also http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Use_eval_to_create_dynamic_templates

*fixed missing dot in file path