Vim/Neovim Notes

Introduction

This page contains notes on ways to use Vim or Neovim with Drake. Wherever there are differences between the two the Neovim value will be given in curly braces after the Vim value (e.g. .vimrc {.config/nvim/init.vim}).

Installing Neovim

If you want to use Neovim, follow the instructions on the Neovim wiki (Ubuntu, Homebrew). Ubuntu users should make sure that they install the Python modules as well.

Configuration Files

sample_vimrc (download) provides a sample configuration file that sets up some plugins and key-mappings that users may find useful for working with Drake. It should work out of the box if copied to ~/.vimrc {~/.config/nvim/init.vim}. Be sure to back up any existing .vimrc {init.vim} before copying! Users with existing Vim configurations are, of course, free to cherry-pick whatever portions of sample_vimrc they’d like.

If you do copy sample_vimrc to .vimrc {init.vim}, your next step is to install the plugins that it specifies.

  1. Open a terminal and launch Vim. The plugin manager (vim-plug) will be automatically installed (to disable this behavior, delete the four lines following the comment “Remove these lines …”).
  2. In Vim, type :PlugInstall and press “Enter”. vim-plug will download the specified plugins from GitHub. If you later decide to stop using vim-plug, you can remove it along with the plugins it installs by deleting the following
    • ~/.vim/autoload/plug.vim {~/.local/share/nvim/site/autoload/plug.vim}
    • ~/.vim/plugged {~/.local/share/nvim/plugged}

Setting up Code-Completion/Linting/Jump To Declaration

YouCompleteMe is a plugin that provides real-time linting + jump-to-declaration functionality. It has a compiled component, which needs to be built before the plugin can be used.

  1. Let <YouCompleteMe-location> be the directory in which the plugin is located. If you’re using the provided sample_vimrc, you can determine <YouCompleteMe-location> by running :echo g:plug_home in Vim and appending /YouCompleteMe to the result.
  2. In a terminal, run
    cd <YouCompleteMe-location>
    git submodule update --init --recursive
    ./install.py --clang-completer
    

In order for YouCompleteMe to provide code-completion and linting for Drake’s C++ files, it needs to know what flags to use when compiling them. Fortunately, bazel-compilation-database provides a way for YouCompleteMe to get this information from Bazel. The following steps should get this working in Drake:

  1. Download the bazel-compilation-database 0.2.2 tarball.
  2. Extract the contents of the tarball to some directory. We will refer to this directory as <bcd-location>.
  3. From the root of your Drake repository run:
    mkdir bazel
    ln -s <bcd-location> bazel/compilation_database
    
  4. Add the following line to your .vimrc {init.vim}:
    let g:ycm_global_ycm_extra_conf = '<bcd-location>/.ycm_extra_conf.py'
    

Now, when you open a Drake C++ file, you should get real-time linting and completion, as well as jump-to functionality (through the :YcmCompeter GoTo command). If it appears not to be working, try running :YcmDiags to force YouCompleteMe to compile the current file. Note that for YouCompleteMe to see a given Drake header file, the corresponding Bazel target must have been built. See also, Linting and Jump-to-Declaration Mappings.

Additional Mappings

The aforementioned sample_vimrc file pulls in several plugins and defines mappings for working with them. It also defines some general-purpose mappings. Here are some highlights. A lot of these start with <leader>, which in the attached file is mapped to ; (so <leader>gv becomes ;gv). You can, of course, change <leader> to whatever you prefer in your .vimrc {init.vim} file.

Git Mappings

These mappings use fugitive.git and Gitv to perform Git-related tasks.

  • <leader>gd shows the git diff for the current file. You can move hunks into the index using Vim’s diff commands.
  • <leader>gs shows the current git status using fugitive.git.You can stage files by moving the cursor to the line and pressing “-“. Press cc to start editing the commit message. Save and exit in the commit message to commit.
  • <leader>gv launches gitv, a Gitk clone for Vim. You can use this to inspect commits, switch branches, cherry-pick, and more

Linting and Jump-to-Declaration Mappings

These mappings use YouCompleteMe and ListToggle.

  • <leader>gg jumps to the declaration of the class/function under the cursor (mnemonic “go go!”). Use the standard jump command Ctrl+o to go back.
  • <leader>fi applies the “fix-it” action listed at the bottom of the buffer (mnemonic “fix it!”).
  • <leader>lo toggles the Location List on and off (mnemonic “LOcation”). All errors found by YouCompleteMe are listed in the location list, which can make it easy to go from one to the next.

File Tree Explorer Mappings

These mappings use NERDTree to provide a file tree explorer in Vim.

  • <leader>nt launches NERDTree for the current working directory
  • <leader>nf launches NERDTree with the current file selected. This is particularly useful for getting to the appropriate BUILD.bazel file for a given source file.

Fuzzy Finder Mappings

These mappings use ctrlp.vim to provide fuzzy file lookup in Vim.

  • <leader>ff launches CtrlP in file mode (mnemonic “find file”). Start typing any portions of the file path (they don’t have to be contiguous!) and select the file you want once the choices are narrowed down sufficiently.