Can I disable continuation of comments to the next line in Vim?

Question

In Vim, if I'm typing a comment in a code file, and I hit Enter, it automatically makes the newline a comment, too.

For instance, in a Ruby file:

# I manually typed the pound at the start of this line and hit enter.
# This line formatted itself this way automatically.

Generally, this is what I want, but not always. How can I temporarily turn off this auto-commenting behavior?

By temporarily, do you want a a command that does it a single time, or set some option that will last for a few commands until you turn it back on? Possible cross site duplicate: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4896003/how-do-i-stop-vim-from-auto-creating-comments-on-enter-press — Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com, Jan 22 '14 at 09:34
I've seen it elsewhere but I'll add it here: "Whoever thought this was a good idea as a default should have their fingers broken." — user1683793, Dec 16 '19 at 18:57

score 125 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 13 '12 at 10:46

125

I think you're looking for

:set formatoptions-=cro

From :help fo-table:

You can use the 'formatoptions' option  to influence how Vim formats text.
'formatoptions' is a string that can contain any of the letters below.  The
default setting is "tcq".  You can separate the option letters with commas for
readability.

letter  meaning when present in 'formatoptions'

t       Auto-wrap text using textwidth
c       Auto-wrap comments using textwidth, inserting the current comment
        leader automatically.
r       Automatically insert the current comment leader after hitting
        <Enter> in Insert mode.
o       Automatically insert the current comment leader after hitting 'o' or
        'O' in Normal mode.
...

edited Aug 13 '12 at 10:46

Tim

1,742

answered Apr 14 '11 at 21:51

Mike Seplowitz

1,635

26

Thank you so much! This behavior was bothering me-- I came from unix vi to Linux vim. For googlers: For permanent use, see also http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6076592/vim-set-formatoptions-being-lost and enter this line into /etc/vimrc:autocmd BufNewFile,BufRead * setlocal formatoptions-=cro – bgStack15 Jul 23 '14 at 14:20
3

Didn't help; typing /**<ESC>o still adds a star on the next line. – Qix - MONICA WAS MISTREATED Sep 06 '16 at 03:06
4

Doesn't work. z – felwithe Sep 19 '19 at 12:06
4

Also didn't work for me. I believe the issue is that -=cro only works if formatoptions contains the flags exactly in this order. set formatoptions-=c formatoptions-=r formatoptions-=o works better for me. – Martin von Wittich May 27 '20 at 12:09
Thanks. This is the only answer here that works. – user959690 Nov 20 '20 at 01:15
1

Didn't work for me. – daedsidog Apr 27 '21 at 13:53
If you're coming here from C or C++ and don't want // comments at the end of a line to continue after pressing Enter, use set formatoptions+=/ (or the autocmd equivalent in your .vimrc) (found this answer from a search for "vim C disable indented multi-line c++ comment") – nitrogen Jan 15 '23 at 21:34
-= did not work for me on RHEL8. only formatoptions= worked, next step removing brace highlighting – brookbot Jun 15 '23 at 23:50
@MartinvonWittich that does not work for me, either, on vim 7.4.629 (RHEL6). – RonJohn Nov 24 '23 at 17:32
@bgStack15 that works. – RonJohn Nov 24 '23 at 17:35
on an RHEL-like, I needed @Wenfang-Du version of this answer to match every file type. – Olivier Gauthé Feb 16 '24 at 20:47

score 15 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 05 '18 at 21:29

15

Temporarily setting the 'paste' option may do what you want, but it also disables a lot of other Vim features:

Use :set paste to turn it on and :set nopaste to turn it off. Alternatively, you can use :set paste! to toggle it.

See also:

:help 'paste'
:help 'pastetoggle'

(Those commands are typed with the single-quotes.)

edited Jul 05 '18 at 21:29

Peter Mortensen

12,190

answered Apr 14 '11 at 22:12

Heptite

19,838

4

:set paste to turn it on and :set nopaste to turn it off – User May 23 '14 at 01:55
2

alternatively you can use :set paste! to toggle it TRUE and FALSE – Felipe Alvarez Jun 24 '14 at 03:37

score 11 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 19 '20 at 08:31

11

An alternative is to just hit ctrl-w after you pressed enter. This deletes the previous word (e.g. # or //) when in insert mode. In fact, ctrl-w is a pretty universal shortcut in most applications.

answered Jun 19 '20 at 08:31

willmcpherson2

111

3

In fact, ctrl-w is a pretty universal shortcut in most applications

It means "Close Window" (or tab) in most applications I use. Sucks for vim bindings in jupyter, e.g.
– Cogwheel Sep 13 '21 at 21:37

score 5 · Answer 4 · edited Jul 05 '18 at 21:31

5

I enter non-formatted plain new lines with <CR>.

When I want to continue typing the next line in the commented block I just use the O key as usual.

Try this:

nnoremap <silent> <cr> :set paste<cr>o<esc>:set nopaste<cr>

edited Jul 05 '18 at 21:31

Peter Mortensen

12,190

answered Aug 26 '15 at 12:21

user4157482

171
1
5

1

What do you mean by <CR>? A particular key? – Peter Mortensen Jul 05 '18 at 21:32
1

CR stands for carriage return. On the computers I have used it has been mapped to the Enter key. – user4157482 Jul 06 '18 at 02:15

Wenfang Du · Answer 5 · 2022-07-05T11:18:57.383

4

To permanently disable this behavior, add autocmd FileType * set formatoptions-=cro in your .vimrc/init.vim.

edited Jul 05 '22 at 11:18

answered Jul 05 '22 at 11:08

Wenfang Du

589

score 1 · Answer 6 · edited Jul 05 '18 at 21:33

1

I have ended up with this:

nnoremap <Leader>o o<Esc>^Da
nnoremap <Leader>O O<Esc>^Da

It appends a new line, deletes everything already inserted there, and leaves the cursor in insert mode in the indented column, without messing with the format options.

edited Jul 05 '18 at 21:33

Peter Mortensen

12,190

answered May 19 '17 at 19:41

Rubén Gómez

121
2

score 1 · Answer 7 · edited Jul 05 '18 at 21:35

This answer applies to Debian and some of its derivatives.

On a Debian distribution Vim defaults are unreasonable. They are located in /usr/share/vim/vim80/defaults.vim and applied after(!) /etc/vim/vimrc is run. The only way to tell Vim not to use its defaults is to ensure ~/.vimrc exists even if it is blank. Vim on startup tries to read from .vimrc, but if the file is not found it applies the defaults which brings a lot of undesirable behavior e.g. mouse integration, copy-paste quirks, comment auto-wrap, etc.

On Debian you can fix ALL that by simply running touch ~/.vimrc

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Feb 06 '20 at 21:44

1

This just makes it one line command which when you run this, it will disable continuation of comment permanently

echo 'au FileType * set fo-=c fo-=r fo-=o' >> ~/.vimrc

answered Feb 06 '20 at 21:44

grepit

223

3

This answer would be better simply as: Add `autocmd FileType set formatoptions-=croto your.vimrc` file.* But +1 non-the-less - this was the only answer that worked for me here! :D – user2121 Jun 19 '20 at 12:00

score 1 · Answer 9 · edited Jul 29 '21 at 17:45

If you just want to temporary disable this feature, I think the easiest way is to make a key map. <C-u> can delete content of current line to the beginning, keep indent space, so I created a key map in my .vimrc:

inoremap <silent><expr> <C-CR> "\<CR>\<C-u>"

This map is for insert mode, you can create a normal mode key map if you want, like below:

nnoremap <silent><expr> <C-CR> "o\<C-u>"

Can I disable continuation of comments to the next line in Vim?

9 Answers9

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