vim default syntax for files with no extension

Question

How do I set up a default syntax for files that have no extension in vim?

Answer 1

If I remeber it right you can put a file named syntax.vim inside your ~/.vim/syntax folder. This file is used as default syntax highlight source. If your .vim folder does not exist, you have to create it:

mkdir ~/.vim
mkdir ~/.vim/syntax
touch ~/.vim/syntax/syntax.vim

Now you can add your default syntax to the syntax.vim file. For further documentation you can look at the vim sourceforge page.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

One way would be to add an autocommand to your .vimrc for files that don't have the syntax set:

au BufNewFile,BufRead * if &syntax == '' | set syntax=html | endif

Or, you could set the filetype for any file that it's not defined for:

filetype plugin on
au BufNewFile,BufRead * if &ft == '' | set ft=html | endif

Setting filetype plugin on along with the au command gives the added benefit of loading HTML plugins if you have any. This also sets the syntax to "html" as well.

Answer 3

To pick the default syntax for files without an extension, you can create an autocommand that checks if the filename contains a ., and if not, switches to the desired syntax:

autocmd BufNewFile,BufRead * if expand('%:t') !~ '\.' | set syntax=perl | endif

This one picks perl as a default syntax, but you can simply use whichever is appropriate.