(This is an excerpt taken from the post: Tabs & Spaces in Vim: How to Make Conscious Use of Both)
It will be presented two ways to visualize Tabs in Vim.
Searching for the Tab Character
A quick way to visualize whether there is a Tab character is by searching for it using Vim’s search-commands:
- In NORMAL mode, type
/\tand hit<Enter>. It will search for the Tab character (\t) and highlight the results.
Although it may be good for a quick check, if you need persistent Tabs visibility plus the ability to use the search-commands for other purposes, you might need another solution.
Activating list Mode
Vim’s list mode displays on screen unprintable characters (<Tab>, EOF, EOL, etc…) with strings defined by the listchars option.
By default, it will display ^I for a Tab character but this default representation breaks screen alignment so, the suggestion is to set a string representation to be used for the Tab character:
- In
NORMALmode, type:set listchars=tab:▷▷⋮or addset listchars=tab:▷▷⋮to your.vimrcfile.
The command above defines the strings that Vim will display (▷▷⋮) for a Tab character. Vim’s behavior is to repeat or omit the second character (▷), which means:
A Tab character on a file that the indentation is set to occupy two screen spaces, will display ▷⋮.
A Tab character on a file that the indentation is set to occupy four screen spaces, will display ▷▷▷⋮.
- Toggle
listmode by typing:set invlistinNORMALmode.
Extra: Create a Mapping to Toggle list Mode Quickly
Add the following line to your .vimrc file:
noremap <Leader><Tab><Tab> :set invlist<CR>
(You may substitute <Leader><Tab><Tab> as you wish. If you’d like to know more about Vim mappings, please check this post.)
Check the full post about Tabs & Spaces in Vim to know more.
Do you have any other tip about visualizing Tabs in Vim? Please leave a comment!
Thanks for reading 🙌 !
Top comments (3)
The list mode solution is a nice trick!
I am glad it helped! 🙌
invisible characters can be a nightmare. The worst time sucks are those brought on by mixing tabs and spaces or windows style line endings.