VIM

Syntastic syntax checker for VIM

Michael Thessel, , 1 Comment

In an earlier post I explained how to make PHP syntax checking available in VIM. Recently I came across the Syntastic VIM plugin which offers a much better VIM integration as well as syntax checking for more than 60 languages. A nice feature of Syntastic is that you can chain several checkers. In the case of PHP you can chain the a regular PHP syntax check with the PHP_CodeSniffer style checker. This way you get warnings about syntax as well as style issues.

In case of an issue Syntastic will highlight the line where the issue occurred:
Syntastic error screen

I recommend to use the pathogen VIM plugin and keep all your VIM plugins in individual subdirectories of .vim/bundle. You can either clone or copy the Syntastic plugin there. Once the plugin is installed you can run the :SyntasticInfo command in any file and you will get list of the active checkers.

:SyntasticInfo
Syntastic info for filetype: php
Available checkers: php
Currently active checker(s): php

Syntastic automatically runs when saving the file and you can trigger a syntax check any time by executing :SyntasticCheck

If you want to enable style checks you need to install PHP_CodeSniffer. On my Ubuntu install (Ubuntu-Server 12.04 LTS) the packaged version of PHP_CodeSniffer is too dated to work with Syntastic so I went with installing the PEAR version.

root@ubuntu:~# pear install PHP_CodeSniffer

Then you need to add PHP_CodeSniffer to the checker list for PHP by adding these lines to your .vimrc:

let g:syntastic_php_checkers = ['php', 'phpcs']
let g:syntastic_php_phpcs_args = "--standard=zend -n --report=csv"

You can configure various style standards. I went with the Zend standard. You can change the arguments to your needs. You can see a full list of the available arguments by running phpcs –help.

Syntastic syntax checker for VIM

Using vimdiff as GIT diff tool

Michael Thessel, , 1 Comment

If you want to review and edit your currently pending changeset in GIT vimdiff can be very handy. The regular git diff will simply output differences in patch format. If you set up GIT to use vimdiff as diff tool you will be able to see the differences in VIM’s split window view and be able to edit them too.

To use vimdiff as GIT diff tool simply run those 3 commands:

# git config --global diff.tool vimdiff
# git config --global difftool.prompt false
# git config --global alias.d difftool

Alternatively you can add these 3 sections to your .gitconfig

 [diff]
    tool = vimdiff
[difftool]
    prompt = false
[alias]
    d = difftool

If you now run git d [file] you will see the changes in VIM. You can still use the regular git diff command to get the patch output.

Using vimdiff as GIT diff tool

PHP Syntax error testing in VIM

Michael Thessel, , Leave a comment

Please see my article about the Syntastic Vim Plugin for a better way of syntax checking in VIM.

I find it really helpful to be able to test for syntax errors from within VIM. VIM offers this option via filetype plugins and the :make command. To enable this functionality 2 small config changes are necessary.

~/.vimrc

# Map the make command to CTRL+t 
map <C-T> :w<CR>:make <CR>

~/.vim/ftplugin/php.vim

# Set the make command to execute the PHP syntax checker
set makeprg=php\ -l\ %
# Update error formatting
set errorformat=%m\ in\ %f\ on\ line\ %l

This will only change the make command for .php  files and keep other files unaffected.

Once you changed those 2 files you can hit CTRL+t and you will see if you have any syntax errors in your code:

PHP Parse error:  syntax error, unexpected ';' in test.php on line 3
Errors parsing test.php

Note: Executing the syntax test will save the file before testing.

PHP Syntax error testing in VIM