XML Hacks

Edit XML with Vim

With some special configuration, Vim can become a powerful XML editor.

So you want to edit XML, but Vim is your favorite editor? The good news is that you don’t need an XML-specific editor! If you’re mortal, you’ll soon discover that editing raw XML can become tedious even in Vim (with its default configuration). But Vim is highly customizable and extensible. After a little tailoring, Vim performs excellently as an XML editor, with syntax highlighting, automatic indentation, navigational aids, and automation.

Basic Configuration

I will assume you have Vim set up the way you like it already on a Unix system, so we won’t fiddle much with your .vimrc file. Example 2-1 shows the bare minimum of what you need to make the rest of the hack work properly.

Example 2-1. Minimum .vimrc file

" $HOME/.vimrc
" Don't pretend to be vi
set nocompatible
" Turn on syntax highlighting
syntax on
" Indicate that we want to detect filetypes and want to run filetype
" plugins.
filetype plugin on

Everything else will go in a filetype plug-in . Vim will source this file when it detects that you are editing an XML file (i.e., when the file ends with the .xml suffix or if it has a proper XML declaration). Example 2-2 is a good starter ftplugin. Save it to your home directory as .vim/after/ftplugin/xml.vim. (The file xml.vim is in the book’s file archive.) The after segment of the path means that it will be sourced after all the normal scripts, plug-ins, and so on are sourced, which allows ...