Clighter: VIM plugin to improve c-family development environment based on Clang

Clighter is not maintained anymore, instead, you can:

Try Clighter8 If You Use VIM8

Try Clighter8 if you use VIM8, it runs 10x faster than Clighter

https://github.com/bbchung/clighter8

Try Clamp If You Use NeoVim

Try Clamp if you use NeoVim, it use NeoVim's new plugin api with lighting highlight speed

https://github.com/bbchung/Clamp

Intro

Clighter(C lighter) makes vim a better c-family development environment as a plugin based on libclang. Clighter provides following features currently:

• Context-sentitive highlight
  • Syntax highlight
  • Occurrences highlight
• Experimental rename-refactoring function

Requirements

Clighter requires the following:

• Vim version 7.4 with python2.x enabled
• libclang. Please reference http://llvm.org/apt/ to install
• Clighter has been tested under Linux

Installation

• Vundle Install:

  vim
  Bundle 'bbchung/clighter'
  

• Manuall Install

Untar the clighter.tar.gz to your vim path.

Options

g:clighter_autostart

Clighter will automatically start while g:clighter_autostart ==

1

Default:

1

vim
let g:clighter_autostart = 1

g:clighterlibclangfile

Clighter searches libclang-3.5 in your system automatically. You must set this option when clighter cannot find libclang, or other version of libclang is used.

Default:

''

vim
let g:clighter_libclang_file = '/usr/lib/libclang.so'

g:clighterrenameprompt_level

The prompt level of rename refactoring.

0

1

2

Default:

1

vim
let g:clighter_rename_prompt_level = 1

g:clighterenablecross_rename

0

1

Default:

1

vim
let g:clighter_enable_cross_rename = 1

g:clighterhighlightblacklist

Define the group of syntax NOT to be highlighted.

Default:

['cligherInclusionDirective']

The recommend setting to not be dazzled:

vim
let g:clighter_highlight_blacklist = ['clighterNamespaceRef', 'clighterFunctionDecl', 'clighterFieldDecl', 'clighterDeclRefExprCall', 'clighterMemberRefExprCall', 'clighterMemberRefExprVar', 'clighterNamespace', 'clighterNamespaceRef', 'cligherInclusionDirective', 'clighterVarDecl']

g:clighteroccurrencesmode

If value is 0, the behavior of occurrences highlight is visual studio liked(some delay before highlighting different cursors), or the cursors will always be highlighted immediately.

Default:

0

vim
let g:clighter_occurrences_mode = 0

g:clighterheuristiccompile_args

Clighter will search the compilation database to compile, however the compilation database the CMake generated doesn't include the header files(make sense, but clighter needs it). Clighter can heuristic search the compilation database to guess the most possible compile args if set this option, and it's useful for header files.

Default:

1

vim
let g:clighter_heuristic_compile_args = 1

g:clightercompileargs

The global compile args of clighter. It will be appended in each file's compile args.

Default:

[]

vim
let g:clighter_compile_args = []

g:ClighterOccurrences

Enable occurrences highlight. Occurrences highlight is a clighter function that highlight all words with the same semantic symbol.

Default:

1

vim
let g:ClighterOccurrences = 1

Commands and Functions

Clighter provides these commands and functions.

ClighterEnable

Enable clighter plugin.

ClighterDisable

Disable clighter plugin.

ClighterToggleOccurrences

Toggle occurrences highlighting.

ClighterShowInfo

Show clighter runtime informations.

clighter#Rename()

• An experimental function to do rename refactoring.
• The scope is opened vim buffers.
• There is no one-step undo/redo method.
• Strongly recommend that backing up all files before calling this function.
• For convenience, you can add key mapping in your vimrc:

  vim
  nmap  r :call clighter#Rename()
  

Compilation Database

Clighter automatically load and parse the compilation database "compile_commands.json" if it exists in current working directory, then the compile options will be passed to libclang. For more information about compilation database, please reference Compilation Database.

Highlight Group

Clighter defines these highlight groups corresponded to libclang.

hi default link clighterPrepro PreProc
hi default link clighterDecl Identifier
hi default link clighterRef Type
hi default link cligherInclusionDirective cIncluded
hi default link clighterMacroInstantiation Constant
hi default link clighterVarDecl Identifier
hi default link clighterStructDecl Identifier
hi default link clighterUnionDecl Identifier
hi default link clighterClassDecl Identifier
hi default link clighterEnumDecl Identifier
hi default link clighterParmDecl Identifier
hi default link clighterFunctionDecl Identifier
hi default link clighterFieldDecl Identifier
hi default link clighterEnumConstantDecl Constant
hi default link clighterDeclRefExprEnum Constant
hi default link clighterDeclRefExprCall Type
hi default link clighterMemberRefExprCall Type
hi default link clighterMemberRefExprVar Type
hi default link clighterTypeRef Type
hi default link clighterNamespace Identifier
hi default link clighterNamespaceRef Type
hi default link clighterTemplateTypeParameter Identifier
hi default link clighterTemplateRef Type
hi default link clighterOccurrences IncSearch

You can customize these colors in your colorscheme, for example:

vim
hi clighterTypeRef term=NONE cterm=NONE ctermbg=232 ctermfg=255 gui=NONE
hi clighterClassDecl term=NONE cterm=NONE ctermbg=255 ctermfg=232 gui=NONE

FAQ

The clighter plugin doesn't work?

Vim version 7.4 with python2.x is required, and make sure libclang(3.5 and 3.6 is recommended) is installed correctly and set g:clighterlibclangfile if need.

Why rename-refactoring function is an experimental function?

Due to the character of c-family language, even libclang provides a powerful c-family parser, it still hard to do rename refactoring. Clighter can only search the current opened buffer to do rename refactoring and it can't guarantee the result correct.

Libclang crash?

When incorrect compile args meet incorrect source code, libclang possibly crashes(for example: empty compile arg meet .hxx), and it may happend in vim thread or background thread of clighter. Currently clighter can't catch such crash, so vim will become unstable if it happens.

Highlighting always are messed up as typing, can fix?

No, Clighter use position based matching by vim. When typing, it can't automatically move the typing offset for highlighted word. Once vim provides such api, it will be fixed.

How to set compile args?

Clighter set the compile args for each file with (g:clightercompileargs + "compilation database"), and both are optional. Compile args will affect the correctness of highlight and refactoring function.

LICENSE

This software is licensed under the GPL v3 license.

Note: This license does not cover the files that come from the LLVM project.