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Tip 1155 Printable Monobook Previous Next

created 2006 · complexity basic · author Salman Halim · version 6.0


This function/command works just like the built-in :set except that it escapes out the spaces on the rhs, making things a bit more easy:

Regular set:

set fp=par\ 70j

Our set:

Set fp=par 70j

Just like the regular :set, multiple options may still be specified:

Set fp=par 70j tw=100 ai! ai?

The only known caveat is in single word options:

Set fp=par 70j ai

What you'll end up with is 'fp' set to 'par 70j ai' because Set uses the presence of the =, ! or ? symbols to differentiate the current word as the start of a new option rather than part of the last one.

Of course, there is no real reason to use Set unless there is an obscure set, such as:

Set mp=texify -b -p --src-specials %

vs

set mp=texify\ -b\ -p\ --src-specials\ %

Of course, there is:

let &mp='texify -b -p --src-specials %'

I like the ability to use Set, however; requires much less thought and planning: if I do a regular 'set' and get an error, I just go up a line in the command-line history and change the 'set' to 'Set' and forget it.

function! Set( ... )
  let result = ''
  for i in a:000
    if ( i !~ '[=!?]' )
      let result .= '\'
    endif
    " Escaping out any existing spaces takes care of the case where we passed in escaped spaces.
    let result .= ' ' .escape( i, ' ' )
  endfor
  execute 'set' .result
endfunction
com! -nargs=+ -complete=option Set call Set( <f-args> )

Comments[]

If I'm reading that right, it can't correctly preseve multiple spaces on the original line. That may sometimes be a problem. Multiple consecutive spaces, I mean.


You are correct. I had toyed with the idea of passing everything in as one big argument and parsing through it myself (match() and strpart() or something), but I just couldn't think of an example from my personal usage where I ever passed in anything but single spaces.


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