*UltiSnips.txt* For Vim version 8.0 or later. The Ultimate Plugin for Snippets in Vim~ UltiSnips *snippet* *snippets* *UltiSnips* 1. Description |UltiSnips-description| 1.1 Requirements |UltiSnips-requirements| 1.2 Acknowledgments |UltiSnips-acknowledgments| 2. Installation and Updating |UltiSnips-install-and-update| 3. Settings & Commands |UltiSnips-settings| 3.1 Commands |UltiSnips-commands| 3.1.1 UltiSnipsEdit |UltiSnipsEdit| 3.1.2 UltiSnipsAddFiletypes |UltiSnipsAddFiletypes| 3.2 Triggers |UltiSnips-triggers| 3.2.1 Trigger key mappings |UltiSnips-trigger-key-mappings| 3.2.2 Using your own trigger functions |UltiSnips-trigger-functions| 3.2.3 Custom autocommands |UltiSnips-custom-autocommands| 3.2.4 Direct use of Python API |UltiSnips-use-python-api| 3.3 Warning About Select Mode Mappings |UltiSnips-warning-smappings| 3.4 Functions |UltiSnips-functions| 3.4.1 UltiSnips#AddSnippetWithPriority |UltiSnips#AddSnippetWithPriority| 3.4.2 UltiSnips#Anon |UltiSnips#Anon| 3.4.3 UltiSnips#SnippetsInCurrentScope |UltiSnips#SnippetsInCurrentScope| 3.4.4 UltiSnips#CanExpandSnippet |UltiSnips#CanExpandSnippet| 3.4.5 UltiSnips#CanJumpForwards |UltiSnips#CanJumpForwards| 3.4.6 UltiSnips#CanJumpBackwards |UltiSnips#CanJumpBackwards| 3.5 Missing python support |UltiSnips-python-warning| 4. Authoring snippets |UltiSnips-authoring-snippets| 4.1 Basics |UltiSnips-basics| 4.1.1 How snippets are loaded |UltiSnips-how-snippets-are-loaded| 4.1.2 Basic syntax |UltiSnips-basic-syntax| 4.1.3 Snippet Options |UltiSnips-snippet-options| 4.1.4 Character Escaping |UltiSnips-character-escaping| 4.1.5 Snippets text-objects |UltiSnips-snippet-text-objects| 4.2 Plaintext Snippets |UltiSnips-plaintext-snippets| 4.3 Visual Placeholder |UltiSnips-visual-placeholder| 4.4 Interpolation |UltiSnips-interpolation| 4.4.1 Shellcode |UltiSnips-shellcode| 4.4.2 VimScript |UltiSnips-vimscript| 4.4.3 Python |UltiSnips-python| 4.4.4 Global Snippets |UltiSnips-globals| 4.5 Tabstops and Placeholders |UltiSnips-tabstops| 4.6 Mirrors |UltiSnips-mirrors| 4.7 Transformations |UltiSnips-transformations| 4.7.1 Replacement String |UltiSnips-replacement-string| 4.7.2 Demos |UltiSnips-demos| 4.8 Clearing snippets |UltiSnips-clearing-snippets| 4.9 Custom context snippets |UltiSnips-custom-context-snippets| 4.10 Snippet actions |UltiSnips-snippet-actions| 4.10.1 Pre-expand actions |UltiSnips-pre-expand-actions| 4.10.2 Post-expand actions |UltiSnips-post-expand-actions| 4.10.3 Post-jump actions |UltiSnips-post-jump-actions| 4.11 Autotrigger |UltiSnips-autotrigger| 5. UltiSnips and Other Plugins |UltiSnips-other-plugins| 5.1 Existing Integrations |UltiSnips-integrations| 5.2 Extending UltiSnips |UltiSnips-extending| 6. Debugging |UltiSnips-Debugging| 7. FAQ |UltiSnips-FAQ| 8. Helping Out |UltiSnips-helping| 9. Contributors |UltiSnips-contributors| This plugin only works if 'compatible' is not set. {Vi does not have any of these features} {only available when |+python3| has been enabled at compile time} ============================================================================== 1. Description *UltiSnips-description* UltiSnips provides snippet management for the Vim editor. A snippet is a short piece of text that is either re-used often or contains a lot of redundant text. UltiSnips allows you to insert a snippet with only a few key strokes. Snippets are common in structured text like source code but can also be used for general editing like inserting a signature in an email or inserting the current date in a text file. @SirVer posted several short screencasts which make a great introduction to UltiSnips, illustrating its features and usage. http://www.sirver.net/blog/2011/12/30/first-episode-of-ultisnips-screencast/ http://www.sirver.net/blog/2012/01/08/second-episode-of-ultisnips-screencast/ http://www.sirver.net/blog/2012/02/05/third-episode-of-ultisnips-screencast/ http://www.sirver.net/blog/2012/03/31/fourth-episode-of-ultisnips-screencast/ Also the excellent [Vimcasts](http://vimcasts.org) dedicated three episodes to UltiSnips: http://vimcasts.org/episodes/meet-ultisnips/ http://vimcasts.org/episodes/ultisnips-python-interpolation/ http://vimcasts.org/episodes/ultisnips-visual-placeholder/ 1.1 Requirements *UltiSnips-requirements* ---------------- This plugin works with Vim version 8.0 or later with Python 3 support enabled. It only works if the 'compatible' setting is not set. The Python 3.x interface must be available. In other words, Vim must be compiled with the |+python3| feature. The following commands show how to test if you have python compiled in Vim. They print '1' if the python version is compiled in, '0' if not. Test if Vim is compiled with python version 3.x: > :echo has("python3") The python version Vim is linked against can be found with: > :py3 import sys; print(sys.version) Note that Vim is maybe not using your system-wide installed python version, so make sure to check the Python version inside of Vim. 1.2 Acknowledgments *UltiSnips-acknowledgments* ------------------- UltiSnips was inspired by the snippets feature of TextMate (http://macromates.com/), the GUI text editor for Mac OS X. Managing snippets in Vim is not new. I want to thank Michael Sanders, the author of snipMate, for some implementation details I borrowed from his plugin and for the permission to use his snippets. ============================================================================= 2. Installation and Updating *UltiSnips-install-and-update* The recommended way of getting UltiSnips is to track SirVer/ultisnips on github. The master branch is always stable. Using Pathogen: *UltiSnips-using-pathogen* If you are a pathogen user, you can track the official mirror of UltiSnips on github: > $ cd ~/.vim/bundle && git clone git://github.com/SirVer/ultisnips.git If you also want the default snippets, also track > $ cd ~/.vim/bundle && git clone git://github.com/honza/vim-snippets.git See the pathogen documentation for more details on how to update a bundle. Using a downloaded packet: *UltiSnips-using-a-downloaded-packet* Download the packet and unpack into a directory of your choice. Then add this directory to your Vim runtime path by adding this line to your vimrc file. > set runtimepath+=~/.vim/ultisnips_rep UltiSnips also needs Vim files from the ftdetect/ directory. Unfortunately, Vim only allows this directory in the .vim directory. You therefore have to symlink/copy the files: > mkdir -p ~/.vim/ftdetect/ ln -s ~/.vim/ultisnips_rep/ftdetect/* ~/.vim/ftdetect/ Restart Vim and UltiSnips should work. To access the help, use > :helptags ~/.vim/ultisnips_rep/doc :help UltiSnips UltiSnips comes without snippets. An excellent selection of snippets can be found here: https://github.com/honza/vim-snippets ============================================================================= 3. Settings & Commands *UltiSnips-settings* 3.1 Commands *UltiSnips-commands* ------------ 3.1.1 UltiSnipsEdit *:UltiSnipsEdit* The UltiSnipsEdit command opens a private snippet definition file for the current filetype. If no snippet file exists, a new file is created. If used as UltiSnipsEdit! all public snippet files that exist are taken into account too. If multiple files match the search, the user gets to choose the file. There are several variables associated with the UltiSnipsEdit command. *g:UltiSnipsEditSplit* g:UltiSnipsEditSplit Defines how the edit window is opened. Possible values: |normal| Default. Opens in the current window. |tabdo| Opens the window in a new tab. |horizontal| Splits the window horizontally. |vertical| Splits the window vertically. |context| Splits the window vertically or horizontally depending on context. *g:UltiSnipsSnippetStorageDirectoryForUltiSnipsEdit* g:UltiSnipsSnippetStorageDirectoryForUltiSnipsEdit A single absolute path to a directory which will be used as the storage for location for `UltiSnipsEdit`. This means that UltiSnipsEdit no longer searches all paths in `g:UltiSnipsSnippetDirectories` for snippets to edit, but only this one. Note that this does not imply that the snippet expansion engine also searches this directory. Please read |UltiSnips-how-snippets-are-loaded| for details. *g:UltiSnipsSnippetDirectories* g:UltiSnipsSnippetDirectories An array of relative directory names OR an array with a single absolute path. Defaults to [ "UltiSnips" ]. No entry in this list must be "snippets". Please read |UltiSnips-how-snippets-are-loaded| for details. *g:UltiSnipsEnableSnipMate* g:UltiSnipsEnableSnipMate Enable looking for SnipMate snippets in &runtimepath. UltiSnips will search only for directories named 'snippets' while looking for SnipMate snippets. Defaults to "1", so UltiSnips will look for SnipMate snippets. 3.1.2 UltiSnipsAddFiletypes *:UltiSnipsAddFiletypes* The UltiSnipsAddFiletypes command allows for explicit merging of other snippet filetypes for the current buffer. For example, if you edit a .rst file but also want the Lua snippets to be available you can issue the command > :UltiSnipsAddFiletypes rst.lua using the dotted filetype syntax. Order is important, the first filetype in this list will be the one used for UltiSnipsEdit and the list is ordered by evaluation priority. For example you might add this to your ftplugin/rails.vim > :UltiSnipsAddFiletypes rails.ruby I mention rails first because I want to edit rails snippets when using UltiSnipsEdit and because rails snippets should overwrite equivalent ruby snippets. The priority will now be rails -> ruby -> all. If you have some special programming snippets that should have lower priority than your ruby snippets you can call > :UltiSnipsAddFiletypes ruby.programming The priority will then be rails -> ruby -> programming -> all. 3.2 Triggers *UltiSnips-triggers* ------------ 3.2.1 Trigger key mappings *UltiSnips-trigger-key-mappings* *g:UltiSnipsExpandTrigger* *g:UltiSnipsListSnippets* *g:UltiSnipsJumpForwardTrigger* *g:UltiSnipsJumpBackwardTrigger* *g:UltiSnipsExpandOrJumpTrigger* *g:UltiSnipsJumpOrExpandTrigger* You can define the keys used to trigger UltiSnips actions by setting global variables. Variables define the keys used to expand a snippet, jump forward and jump backwards within a snippet, and list all available snippets in the current expand context. Be advised, that some terminal emulators don't send (and others, like ) to the running program. The variables with their default values are: > g:UltiSnipsExpandTrigger g:UltiSnipsListSnippets g:UltiSnipsJumpForwardTrigger g:UltiSnipsJumpBackwardTrigger UltiSnips will only map the jump triggers while a snippet is active to interfere as little as possible with other mappings. The default value for g:UltiSnipsJumpBackwardTrigger interferes with the built-in complete function: |i_CTRL-X_CTRL-K|. A workaround is to add the following to your vimrc file or switching to a plugin like Supertab or YouCompleteMe. > inoremap If you prefer to use the same trigger for expanding snippets and jumping forward, g:UltiSnipsExpandOrJumpTrigger and g:UltiSnipsJumpOrExpandTrigger variables are what you want. Try to set g:UltiSnipsExpandOrJumpTrigger if you give priority to expanding snippets. It'll expand snippets first when you are in a position where you can both expand snippets and jump forward. > let g:UltiSnipsExpandOrJumpTrigger = "" Or else, if you have a preference for jumping forward first, set g:UltiSnipsJumpOrExpandTrigger instead. > let g:UltiSnipsJumpOrExpandTrigger = "" If both g:UltiSnipsExpandOrJumpTrigger and g:UltiSnipsJumpOrExpandTrigger is set, g:UltiSnipsExpandOrJumpTrigger variable will take effects. 3.2.2 Using your own trigger functions *UltiSnips-trigger-functions* For advanced users there are functions that you can map directly to a key and that correspond to some of the triggers previously defined: g:UltiSnipsExpandTrigger <--> UltiSnips#ExpandSnippet g:UltiSnipsJumpForwardTrigger <--> UltiSnips#JumpForwards g:UltiSnipsJumpBackwardTrigger <--> UltiSnips#JumpBackwards g:UltiSnipsExpandOrJumpTrigger <--> UltiSnips#ExpandSnippetOrJump g:UltiSnipsJumpOrExpandTrigger <--> UltiSnips#JumpOrExpandSnippet If you have g:UltiSnipsExpandTrigger and g:UltiSnipsJumpForwardTrigger set to the same value then the function you are actually going to use is UltiSnips#ExpandSnippetOrJump. Each time any of the functions UltiSnips#ExpandSnippet, UltiSnips#ExpandSnippetOrJump, UltiSnips#JumpOrExpandSnippet, UltiSnips#JumpForwards or UltiSnips#JumpBackwards is called a global variable is set that contains the return value of the corresponding function. The corresponding variables and functions are: UltiSnips#ExpandSnippet --> g:ulti_expand_res (0: fail, 1: success) UltiSnips#ExpandSnippetOrJump --> g:ulti_expand_or_jump_res (0: fail, 1: expand, 2: jump) UltiSnips#JumpOrExpandSnippet --> g:ulti_expand_or_jump_res (0: fail, 1: expand, 2: jump) UltiSnips#JumpForwards --> g:ulti_jump_forwards_res (0: fail, 1: success) UltiSnips#JumpBackwards --> g:ulti_jump_backwards_res (0: fail, 1: success) To see how these return values may come in handy, suppose that you want to map a key to expand or jump, but if none of these actions is successful you want to call another function. UltiSnips already does this automatically for supertab, but this allows you individual fine tuning of your Tab key usage. Usage is as follows: You define a function > let g:ulti_expand_or_jump_res = 0 "default value, just set once function! Ulti_ExpandOrJump_and_getRes() call UltiSnips#ExpandSnippetOrJump() return g:ulti_expand_or_jump_res endfunction then you define your mapping as > inoremap =(Ulti_ExpandOrJump_and_getRes() > 0)?"":IMAP_Jumpfunc('', 0) and if the you can't expand or jump from the current location then the alternative function IMAP_Jumpfunc('', 0) is called. 3.2.3 Custom autocommands *UltiSnips-custom-autocommands* Note Autocommands must not change the buffer in any way. If lines are added, deleted, or modified it will confuse UltiSnips which might scramble your snippet contents. *UltiSnipsEnterFirstSnippet* *UltiSnipsExitLastSnippet* For maximum compatibility with other plug-ins, UltiSnips sets up some special state, include mappings and autocommands, when a snippet starts being expanded, and tears them down once the last snippet has been exited. In order to make it possible to override these "inner" settings, it fires the following "User" autocommands: UltiSnipsEnterFirstSnippet UltiSnipsExitLastSnippet For example, to call a pair of custom functions in response to these events, you might do: > autocmd! User UltiSnipsEnterFirstSnippet autocmd User UltiSnipsEnterFirstSnippet call CustomInnerKeyMapper() autocmd! User UltiSnipsExitLastSnippet autocmd User UltiSnipsExitLastSnippet call CustomInnerKeyUnmapper() Note that snippet expansion may be nested, in which case |UltiSnipsEnterFirstSnippet| will fire only as the first (outermost) snippet is entered, and |UltiSnipsExitLastSnippet| will only fire once the last (outermost) snippet have been exited. 3.2.4 Direct use of Python API *UltiSnips-use-python-api* For even more advanced usage, you can directly write python functions using UltiSnip's python modules. This is an internal and therefore unstable API and not recommended though. Here is a small example function that expands a snippet: > function! s:Ulti_ExpandSnip() Python << EOF import sys, vim from UltiSnips import UltiSnips_Manager UltiSnips_Manager.expand() EOF return "" endfunction 3.3 Warning About Select Mode Mappings *UltiSnips-warning-smappings* -------------------------------------- Vim's help document for |mapmode-s| states: > NOTE: Mapping a printable character in Select mode may confuse the user. It's better to explicitly use :xmap and :smap for printable characters. Or use :sunmap after defining the mapping. However, most Vim plugins, including some default Vim plugins, do not adhere to this. UltiSnips uses Select mode to mark tabstops in snippets for overwriting. Existing Visual+Select mode mappings will interfere. Therefore, UltiSnips issues a |:sunmap| command to remove each Select mode mapping for printable characters. No other mappings are touched. In particular, UltiSnips does not change existing normal, insert or visual mode mappings. If this behavior is not desired, you can disable it by adding this line to your vimrc file. > let g:UltiSnipsRemoveSelectModeMappings = 0 If you want to disable this feature for specific mappings only, add them to the list of mappings to be ignored. For example, the following lines in your vimrc file will unmap all Select mode mappings except those mappings containing either the string "somePlugin" or the string "otherPlugin" in its complete definition as listed by the |:smap| command. > let g:UltiSnipsRemoveSelectModeMappings = 1 let g:UltiSnipsMappingsToIgnore = [ "somePlugin", "otherPlugin" ] 3.4 Functions *UltiSnips-functions* ------------- UltiSnips provides some functions for extending core functionality. 3.4.1 UltiSnips#AddSnippetWithPriority *UltiSnips#AddSnippetWithPriority* The first function is UltiSnips#AddSnippetWithPriority(trigger, value, description, options, filetyp, priority). It adds a new snippet to the current list of snippets. See |UltiSnips-authoring-snippets| for details most of the function arguments. The priority is a number that defines which snippet should be preferred over others. See the priority keyword in |UltiSnips-basic-syntax|. 3.4.2 UltiSnips#Anon *UltiSnips#Anon* The second function is UltiSnips#Anon(value, ...). It expands an anonymous snippet. Anonymous snippets are defined on the spot, expanded and immediately discarded again. Anonymous snippets are not added to the global list of snippets, so they cannot be expanded a second time unless the function is called again. The function takes three optional arguments, in order: trigger, description, options. Arguments coincide with the arguments of the |UltiSnips#AddSnippetWithPriority| function of the same name. The trigger and options arguments can change the way the snippet expands. Same options can be specified as in the snippet definition. See full list of options at |UltiSnips-snippet-options|. The description is unused at this point. An example use case might be this line from a reStructuredText plugin file: inoremap $$ $$=UltiSnips#Anon(':latex:\`$1\`', '$$') This expands the snippet whenever two $ signs are typed. Note: The right-hand side of the mapping starts with an immediate retype of the '$$' trigger and passes '$$' to the function as the trigger argument. This is required in order for UltiSnips to have access to the characters typed so it can determine if the trigger matches or not. A more elegant way of creating such a snippet could be to use |UltiSnips-autotrigger|. 3.4.3 UltiSnips#SnippetsInCurrentScope *UltiSnips#SnippetsInCurrentScope* UltiSnips#SnippetsInCurrentScope returns a vim dictionary with the snippets whose trigger matches the current word. If you need all snippets information for the current buffer, you can simply pass 1 (which means all) as first argument of this function, and use a global variable g:current_ulti_dict_info to get the result (see example below). This function does not add any new functionality to ultisnips directly but allows to use third party plugins to integrate the current available snippets. For example, all completion plugins that integrate with UltiSnips use this function. Another example on how to use this function consider the following function and mapping definition: function! ExpandPossibleShorterSnippet() if len(UltiSnips#SnippetsInCurrentScope()) == 1 "only one candidate... let curr_key = keys(UltiSnips#SnippetsInCurrentScope())[0] normal diw exe "normal a" . curr_key exe "normal a " return 1 endif return 0 endfunction inoremap =(ExpandPossibleShorterSnippet() == 0? '': UltiSnips#ExpandSnippet()) If the trigger for your snippet is lorem, you type lor, and you have no other snippets whose trigger matches lor then hitting will expand to whatever lorem expands to. One more example on how to use this function to extract all snippets available in the current buffer: > function! GetAllSnippets() call UltiSnips#SnippetsInCurrentScope(1) let list = [] for [key, info] in items(g:current_ulti_dict_info) let parts = split(info.location, ':') call add(list, { \"key": key, \"path": parts[0], \"linenr": parts[1], \"description": info.description, \}) endfor return list endfunction 3.4.4 UltiSnips#CanExpandSnippet *UltiSnips#CanExpandSnippet* This function returns 1 if UltiSnips can actually do a meaningful expansion in the current situation. This is useful in conditional mappings. 3.4.5 UltiSnips#CanJumpForwards *UltiSnips#CanJumpForwards* This function returns 1 if UltiSnips can jump forward in the current situation. This is useful in conditional mappings. 3.4.6 UltiSnips#CanJumpBackwards *UltiSnips#CanJumpBackwards* This function returns 1 if UltiSnips can jump backwards in the current situation. This is useful in conditional mappings. 3.4.7 UltiSnips#ToggleAutoTrigger *UltiSnips#ToggleAutoTrigger* This function toggles the `autotrigger` functionality. Its return value corresponds to the new state of the `autotrigger` (0: disabled, 1: enabled). For example, the following mapping can be used to toggle the `autotrigger` in the Insert mode: > inoremap call UltiSnips#ToggleAutoTrigger() < *g:UltiSnipsAutoTrigger* By default, `autotrigger` is enabled (relevant for snippets with the option 'A'). If you want to disable it by default, add the following line to your vimrc: > let g:UltiSnipsAutoTrigger = 0 3.5 Warning about missing python support *UltiSnips-python-warning* ---------------------------------------- When UltiSnips is loaded, it will check that the running Vim was compiled with python support. If no support is detected, a warning will be displayed and loading of UltiSnips will be skipped. If you would like to suppress this warning message, you may add the following line to your vimrc file. let g:UltiSnipsNoPythonWarning = 1 This may be useful if your Vim configuration files are shared across several systems where some of them may not have Vim compiled with python support. ============================================================================= 4. Authoring snippets *UltiSnips-authoring-snippets* 4.1 Basics *UltiSnips-basics* ---------- 4.1.1 How snippets are loaded *UltiSnips-how-snippets-are-loaded* Snippet definition files are stored in snippet directories. The main controlling variable for where these directories are searched for is the list variable, set by default to > let g:UltiSnipsSnippetDirectories=["UltiSnips"] Note that "snippets" is reserved for snipMate snippets and cannot be used in this list. Whether snipMate snippets are active or not is controlled by the variable `g:UltiSnipsEnableSnipMate`. UltiSnips will search each 'runtimepath' directory for the subdirectory names defined in g:UltiSnipsSnippetDirectories in the order they are defined. For example, if you keep your snippets in `~/.vim/mycoolsnippets` and you want to make use of the UltiSnips snippets that come with other plugins, add the following to your vimrc file. > let g:UltiSnipsSnippetDirectories=["UltiSnips", "mycoolsnippets"] If you do not want to use the third party snippets that come with plugins, define the variable accordingly: > let g:UltiSnipsSnippetDirectories=["mycoolsnippets"] If the list has only one entry that is an absolute path, UltiSnips will not iterate through &runtimepath but only look in this one directory for snippets. This can lead to significant speedup. This means you will miss out on snippets that are shipped with third party plugins. You'll need to copy them into this directory manually. An example configuration could be: > let g:UltiSnipsSnippetDirectories=[$HOME.'/.vim/UltiSnips'] You can also redefine the search path on a buffer by buffer basis by setting the variable b:UltiSnipsSnippetDirectories. This variable takes precedence over the global variable. There is an additional variable which does not control the search path for snippets at expansion time, but controls where `:UltiSnipsEdit` is looking for snippets. If this variable is set to a single absolute path it will only affect where the edit command is looking for and writing snippets too. This is useful if you want to use third party snippets, but have all your self created snippets in a single place without being asked where to put the file on edit. Using a strategy similar to how Vim detects |ftplugins|, UltiSnips iterates over the snippet definition directories looking for files with names of the following patterns: ft.snippets, ft_*.snippets, or ft/*, where "ft" is the 'filetype' of the current document and "*" is a shell-like wildcard matching any string including the empty string. The following table shows some typical snippet filenames and their associated filetype. snippet filename filetype ~ ruby.snippets ruby perl.snippets perl c.snippets c c_my.snippets c c/a c c/b.snippets c all.snippets all all/a.snippets all The 'all' filetype is unique. It represents snippets available for use when editing any document regardless of the filetype. A date insertion snippet, for example, would fit well in the all.snippets file. UltiSnips understands Vim's dotted filetype syntax. For example, if you define a dotted filetype for the CUDA C++ framework, e.g. ":set ft=cuda.cpp", then UltiSnips will search for and activate snippets for both the cuda and cpp filetypes. 4.1.2 Basic syntax *UltiSnips-basic-syntax* The snippets file syntax is simple. All lines starting with a # character are considered comments. Comments are ignored by UltiSnips. Use them to document snippets. A line beginning with the keyword 'extends' provides a way of combining snippet files. When the 'extends' directive is included in a snippet file, it instructs UltiSnips to include all snippets from the indicated filetypes. The syntax looks like this: > extends ft1, ft2, ft3 For example, the first line in cpp.snippets looks like this: > extends c When UltiSnips activates snippets for a cpp file, it first looks for all c snippets and activates them as well. This is a convenient way to create specialized snippet files from more general ones. Multiple 'extends' lines are permitted in a snippet file, and they can be included anywhere in the file. A line beginning with the keyword 'priority' sets the priority for all snippets defined in the current file after this line. The default priority for a file is always 0. When a snippet should be expanded, UltiSnips will collect all snippet definitions from all sources that match the trigger and keep only the ones with the highest priority. For example, all shipped snippets have a priority < 0, so that user defined snippets always overwrite shipped snippets. A line beginning with the keyword 'snippet' marks the beginning of a snippet definition and a line starting with the keyword 'endsnippet' marks the end. The snippet definition is placed between the lines. Here is a snippet of an 'if' statement for the Unix shell (sh) filetype. > snippet if "if ... then (if)" if ${2:[[ ${1:condition} ]]}; then ${0:#statements} fi endsnippet The start line takes the following form: > snippet trigger_word [ "description" [ options ] ] The trigger_word is required, but the description and options are optional. The 'trigger_word' is the word or string sequence used to trigger the snippet. Generally a single word is used but the trigger_word can include spaces. If you wish to include spaces, you must wrap the tab trigger in quotes. > snippet "tab trigger" [ "description" [ options ] ] The quotes are not part of the trigger. To activate the snippet type: tab trigger followed by the snippet expand character. It is not technically necessary to use quotes to wrap a trigger with spaces. Any matching characters will do. For example, this is a valid snippet starting line. > snippet !tab trigger! [ "description" [ options ] ] Quotes can be included as part of the trigger by wrapping the trigger in another character. > snippet !"tab trigger"! [ "description" [ options ] ] To activate this snippet one would type: "tab trigger" The 'description' is a string describing the trigger. It is helpful for documenting the snippet and for distinguishing it from other snippets with the same tab trigger. When a snippet is activated and more than one tab trigger match, UltiSnips displays a list of the matching snippets with their descriptions. The user then selects the snippet they want. 4.1.3 Snippet Options: *UltiSnips-snippet-options* The 'options' control the behavior of the snippet. Options are indicated by single characters. The 'options' characters for a snippet are combined into a word without spaces. The options currently supported are: > b Beginning of line - A snippet with this option is expanded only if the tab trigger is the first word on the line. In other words, if only whitespace precedes the tab trigger, expand. The default is to expand snippets at any position regardless of the preceding non-whitespace characters. i In-word expansion - By default a snippet is expanded only if the tab trigger is the first word on the line or is preceded by one or more whitespace characters. A snippet with this option is expanded regardless of the preceding character. In other words, the snippet can be triggered in the middle of a word. w Word boundary - With this option, the snippet is expanded if the tab trigger start matches a word boundary and the tab trigger end matches a word boundary. In other words the tab trigger must be preceded and followed by non-word characters. Word characters are defined by the 'iskeyword' setting. Use this option, for example, to permit expansion where the tab trigger follows punctuation without expanding suffixes of larger words. This option overrides 'i'. r Regular expression - With this option, the tab trigger is expected to be a python regular expression. The snippet is expanded if the recently typed characters match the regular expression. Note: The regular expression MUST be quoted (or surrounded with another character) like a multi-word tab trigger (see above) whether it has spaces or not. A resulting match is passed to any python code blocks in the snippet definition as the local variable "match". Regular expression snippets can be triggered in-word by default. To avoid this you can start your regex pattern with '\b', although this will not respect your 'iskeyword' setting. t Do not expand tabs - If a snippet definition includes leading tab characters, by default UltiSnips expands the tab characters honoring the Vim 'shiftwidth', 'softtabstop', 'expandtab' and 'tabstop' indentation settings. (For example, if 'expandtab' is set, the tab is replaced with spaces.) If this option is set, UltiSnips will ignore the Vim settings and insert the tab characters as is. This option is useful for snippets involved with tab delimited formats. s Remove whitespace immediately before the cursor at the end of a line before jumping to the next tabstop. This is useful if there is a tabstop with optional text at the end of a line. m Trim all whitespaces from right side of snippet lines. Useful when snippet contains empty lines which should remain empty after expanding. Without this option empty lines in snippets definition will have indentation too. e Custom context snippet - With this option expansion of snippet can be controlled not only by previous characters in line, but by any given python expression. This option can be specified along with other options, like 'b'. See |UltiSnips-custom-context-snippets| for more info. A Snippet will be triggered automatically, when condition matches. See |UltiSnips-autotrigger| for more info. The end line is the 'endsnippet' keyword on a line by itself. > endsnippet When parsing snippet files, UltiSnips chops the trailing newline character from the 'endsnippet' end line. 4.1.4 Character Escaping: *UltiSnips-character-escaping* In snippet definitions, the characters '`', '{', '$' and '\' have special meaning. If you want to insert one of these characters literally, escape them with a backslash, '\'. 4.1.5 Snippets text-objects *UltiSnips-snippet-text-objects* Inside a snippets buffer, the following text objects are available: > iS inside snippet aS around snippet (including empty lines that follow) 4.2 Plaintext Snippets *UltiSnips-plaintext-snippets* ---------------------- To illustrate plaintext snippets, let's begin with a simple example. You can try the examples yourself. Simply edit a new file with Vim. Example snippets will be added to the 'all.snippets' file, so you'll want to open it in Vim for editing as well in the same Vim instance. You can use |UltiSnipsEdit| for this, but you can also just run > :tabedit ~/.vim/UltiSnips/all.snippets Add this snippet to 'all.snippets' and save the file. ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > snippet bye "My mail signature" Good bye, Sir. Hope to talk to you soon. - Arthur, King of Britain endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- UltiSnips detects when you write changes to a snippets file and automatically makes the changes active. So in the empty buffer, type the tab trigger 'bye' and then press the key. bye --> Good bye, Sir. Hope to talk to you soon. - Arthur, King of Britain The word 'bye' will be replaced with the text of the snippet definition. 4.3 Visual Placeholder *UltiSnips-visual-placeholder* ---------------------- Snippets can contain a special placeholder called ${VISUAL}. The ${VISUAL} variable is expanded with the text selected just prior to expanding the snippet. To see how a snippet with a ${VISUAL} placeholder works, define a snippet with the placeholder, use Vim's Visual mode to select some text, and then press the key you use to trigger expanding a snippet (see g:UltiSnipsExpandTrigger). The selected text is deleted, and you are dropped into Insert mode. Now type the snippet tab trigger and press the key to trigger expansion. As the snippet expands, the previously selected text is printed in place of the ${VISUAL} placeholder. The ${VISUAL} placeholder can contain default text to use when the snippet has been triggered when not in Visual mode. The syntax is: > ${VISUAL:default text} The ${VISUAL} placeholder can also define a transformation (see |UltiSnips-transformations|). The syntax is: > ${VISUAL:default/search/replace/option}. Here is a simple example illustrating a visual transformation. The snippet will take selected text, replace every instance of "should" within it with "is", and wrap the result in tags. ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > snippet t ${VISUAL:inside text/should/is/g} endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- Start with this line of text: > this should be cool Position the cursor on the word "should", then press the key sequence: viw (visual mode -> select inner word). Then press , type "t" and press again. The result is: > -> this is be cool If you expand this snippet while not in Visual mode (e.g., in Insert mode type t), you will get: > inside text 4.4 Interpolation *UltiSnips-interpolation* ----------------- 4.4.1 Shellcode: *UltiSnips-shellcode* Snippets can include shellcode. Put a shell command in a snippet and when the snippet is expanded, the shell command is replaced by the output produced when the command is executed. The syntax for shellcode is simple: wrap the code in backticks, '`'. When a snippet is expanded, UltiSnips runs shellcode by first writing it to a temporary script and then executing the script. The shellcode is replaced by the standard output. Anything you can run as a script can be used in shellcode. Include a shebang line, for example, #!/usr/bin/perl, and your snippet has the ability to run scripts using other programs, perl, for example. Here are some examples. This snippet uses a shell command to insert the current date. ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > snippet today Today is the `date +%d.%m.%y`. endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- today -> Today is the 15.07.09. This example inserts the current date using perl. ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > snippet today Today is `#!/usr/bin/perl @a = localtime(); print $a[3] . '.' . $a[4] . '.' . ($a[5]+1900);`. endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- today -> Today is 15.6.2009. 4.4.2 VimScript: *UltiSnips-vimscript* You can also use Vim scripts (sometimes called VimL) in interpolation. The syntax is similar to shellcode. Wrap the code in backticks and to distinguish it as a Vim script, start the code with '!v'. Here is an example that counts the indent of the current line: ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > snippet indent Indent is: `!v indent(".")`. endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- (note the 4 spaces in front): indent -> (note the 4 spaces in front): Indent is: 4. 4.4.3 Python: *UltiSnips-python* Python interpolation is by far the most powerful. The syntax is similar to Vim scripts except code is started with '!p'. Python scripts can be run using the python shebang '#!/usr/bin/python', but using the '!p' format comes with some predefined objects and variables, which can simplify and shorten code. For example, a 'snip' object instance is implied in python code. Python code using the '!p' indicator differs also in another way. Generally when a snippet is expanded the standard output of code replaces the code. With python code the value of the 'snip.rv' property replaces the code. Standard output is ignored. The variables automatically defined in python code are: > fn - The current filename path - The complete path to the current file t - The values of the placeholders, t[1] is the text of ${1}, etc. snip - UltiSnips.TextObjects.SnippetUtil object instance. Has methods that simplify indentation handling and owns the string that should be inserted for the snippet. context - Result of context condition. See |UltiSnips-custom-context-snippets|. match - Only in regular expression triggered snippets. This is the return value of the match of the regular expression. See http://docs.python.org/library/re.html#match-objects The 'snip' object provides the following methods: > snip.mkline(line="", indent=None): Returns a line ready to be appended to the result. If indent is None, then mkline prepends spaces and/or tabs appropriate to the current 'tabstop' and 'expandtab' variables. snip.shift(amount=1): Shifts the default indentation level used by mkline right by the number of spaces defined by 'shiftwidth', 'amount' times. snip.unshift(amount=1): Shifts the default indentation level used by mkline left by the number of spaces defined by 'shiftwidth', 'amount' times. snip.reset_indent(): Resets the indentation level to its initial value. snip.opt(var, default): Checks if the Vim variable 'var' has been set. If so, it returns the variable's value; otherwise, it returns the value of 'default'. The 'snip' object provides some properties as well: > snip.rv: 'rv' is the return value, the text that will replace the python block in the snippet definition. It is initialized to the empty string. This deprecates the 'res' variable. snip.c: The text currently in the python block's position within the snippet. It is set to empty string as soon as interpolation is completed. Thus you can check if snip.c is != "" to make sure that the interpolation is only done once. This deprecates the "cur" variable. snip.v: Data related to the ${VISUAL} placeholder. This has two attributes: snip.v.mode ('v', 'V', '^V', see |visual-mode| ) snip.v.text The text that was selected. snip.fn: The current filename. snip.basename: The current filename with the extension removed. snip.ft: The current filetype. snip.p: Last selected placeholder. Will contain placeholder object with following properties: 'current_text' - text in the placeholder on the moment of selection; 'start' - placeholder start on the moment of selection; 'end' - placeholder end on the moment of selection; For your convenience, the 'snip' object also provides the following operators: > snip >> amount: Equivalent to snip.shift(amount) snip << amount: Equivalent to snip.unshift(amount) snip += line: Equivalent to "snip.rv += '\n' + snip.mkline(line)" Any variables defined in a python block can be used in other python blocks that follow within the same snippet. Also, the python modules 'vim', 're', 'os', 'string' and 'random' are pre-imported within the scope of snippet code. Other modules can be imported using the python 'import' command. Python code allows for very flexible snippets. For example, the following snippet mirrors the first tabstop value on the same line but right aligned and in uppercase. ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > snippet wow ${1:Text}`!p snip.rv = (75-2*len(t[1]))*' '+t[1].upper()` endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- wowHello World -> Hello World HELLO WORLD The following snippet uses the regular expression option and illustrates regular expression grouping using python's match object. It shows that the expansion of a snippet can depend on the tab trigger used to define the snippet, and that tab trigger itself can vary. ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > snippet "be(gin)?( (\S+))?" "begin{} / end{}" br \begin{${1:`!p snip.rv = match.group(3) if match.group(2) is not None else "something"`}} ${2:${VISUAL}} \end{$1}$0 endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- becenter -> \begin{center} \end{center} ------------------- SNAP ------------------- be center -> \begin{center} \end{center} The second form is a variation of the first; both produce the same result, but it illustrates how regular expression grouping works. Using regular expressions in this manner has some drawbacks: 1. If you use the key for both expanding snippets and completion then if you typed "be form" expecting the completion "be formatted", you would end up with the above SNAP instead, not what you want. 2. The snippet is harder to read. The biggest advantage, however, is that you can create snippets that take into account the text preceding a "trigger". This way, you can use it to create postfix snippets, which are popular in some IDEs. ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > snippet "(\w+).par" "Parenthesis (postfix)" r (`!p snip.rv = match.group(1)`$1)$0 endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- something.par -> (something) ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > snippet "([^\s].*)\.return" "Return (postfix)" r return `!p snip.rv = match.group(1)`$0 endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- value.return -> return value 4.4.4 Global Snippets: *UltiSnips-globals* Global snippets provide a way to reuse common code in multiple snippets. Currently, only python code is supported. The result of executing the contents of a global snippet is put into the globals of each python block in the snippet file. To create a global snippet, use the keyword 'global' in place of 'snippet', and for python code, you use '!p' for the trigger. For example, the following snippet produces the same output as the last example . However, with this syntax the 'upper_right' snippet can be reused by other snippets. ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > global !p def upper_right(inp): return (75 - 2 * len(inp))*' ' + inp.upper() endglobal snippet wow ${1:Text}`!p snip.rv = upper_right(t[1])` endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- wowHello World -> Hello World HELLO WORLD Python global functions can be stored in a python module and then imported. This makes global functions easily accessible to all snippet files. You can just drop python files into ~/.vim/pythonx and import them directly inside your snippets. For example to use ~/.vim/pythonx/my_snippets_helpers.py > global !p from my_snippet_helpers import * endglobal 4.5 Tabstops and Placeholders *UltiSnips-tabstops* *UltiSnips-placeholders* ----------------------------- Snippets are used to quickly insert reused text into a document. Often the text has a fixed structure with variable components. Tabstops are used to simplify modifying the variable content. With tabstops you can easily place the cursor at the point of the variable content, enter the content you want, then jump to the next variable component, enter that content, and continue until all the variable components are complete. The syntax for a tabstop is the dollar sign followed by a number, for example, '$1'. Tabstops start at number 1 and are followed in sequential order. The '$0' tabstop is a special tabstop. It is always the last tabstop in the snippet no matter how many tabstops are defined. If there is no '$0' defined, '$0' tabstop will be defined at the end of the snippet. Here is a simple example. ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > snippet letter Dear $1, $0 Yours sincerely, $2 endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- letterBenPaulThanks for suggesting UltiSnips!-> Dear Ben, Thanks for suggesting UltiSnips! Yours sincerely, Paul You can use to jump to the next tabstop, and to jump to the previous. The key was not used for jumping forward because it is commonly used for completion. See |UltiSnips-triggers| for help on defining different keys for motions. It is often useful to have some default text for a tabstop. The default text may be a value commonly used for the variable component, or it may be a word or phrase that reminds you what is expected for the variable component. To include default text, the syntax is '${1:value}'. The following example illustrates a snippet for the shell 'case' statement. The tabstops use default values to remind the user of what value is expected. ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > snippet case case ${1:word} in ${2:pattern} ) $0;; esac endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- case$option-vverbose=true case $option in -v ) verbose=true;; esac Sometimes it is useful to have a tabstop within a tabstop. To do this, simply include the nested tabstop as part of the default text. Consider the following example illustrating an HTML anchor snippet. ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > snippet a endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- When this snippet is expanded, the first tabstop has a default value of 'http://www.example.com'. If you want the 'http://' schema, jump to the next tabstop. It has a default value of 'example.com'. This can be replaced by typing whatever domain you want. agoogle.comGoogle -> Google If at the first tabstop you want a different url schema or want to replace the default url with a named anchor, '#name', for example, just type the value you want. a#topTop -> Top In the last example, typing any text at the first tabstop replaces the default value, including the second tabstop, with the typed text. So the second tabstop is essentially deleted. When a tabstop jump is triggered, UltiSnips moves to the next remaining tabstop '$0'. This feature can be used intentionally as a handy way for providing optional tabstop values to the user. Here is an example to illustrate. ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > snippet a $0 endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- Here, '$1' marks the first tabstop. It is assumed you always want to add a value for the 'href' attribute. After entering the url and pressing , the snippet will jump to the second tabstop, '$2'. This tabstop is optional. The default text is ' class="link"'. You can press to accept the tabstop, and the snippet will jump to the third tabstop, '$3', and you can enter the class attribute value, or, at the second tabstop you can press the backspace key thereby replacing the second tabstop default with an empty string, essentially removing it. In either case, continue by pressing and the snippet will jump to the final tabstop inside the anchor. ahttp://www.google.comvisitedGoogle -> Google ahttp://www.google.comGoogle -> Google Another special type of tabstop is choice tabstop. It let's you to choose from a predefined list of items. The syntax of a choice tabstop is > ${1|item1,item2,item3,...|} Here is an example to illustrate this feature. ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > snippet q Your age: ${1|<18,18~60,>60|} Your height: ${2|<120cm,120cm~180cm,>180cm|} endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- q22 Your age: 18~60 Your height: 120cm~180cm The default text of tabstops can also contain mirrors, transformations or interpolation. 4.6 Mirrors *UltiSnips-mirrors* ----------- Mirrors repeat the content of a tabstop. During snippet expansion when you enter the value for a tabstop, all mirrors of that tabstop are replaced with the same value. To mirror a tabstop simply insert the tabstop again using the "dollar sign followed by a number" syntax, e.g., '$1'. A tabstop can be mirrored multiple times in one snippet, and more than one tabstop can be mirrored in the same snippet. A mirrored tabstop can have a default value defined. Only the first instance of the tabstop need have a default value. Mirrored tabstop will take on the default value automatically. Mirrors are handy for start-end tags, for example, TeX 'begin' and 'end' tag labels, XML and HTML tags, and C code #ifndef blocks. Here are some snippet examples. ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > snippet env \begin{${1:enumerate}} $0 \end{$1} endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- envitemize -> \begin{itemize} \end{itemize} ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > snippet ifndef #ifndef ${1:SOME_DEFINE} #define $1 $0 #endif /* $1 */ endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- ifndefWIN32 -> #ifndef WIN32 #define WIN32 #endif /* WIN32 */ 4.7 Transformations *UltiSnips-transformations* ------------------- Note: Transformations are a bit difficult to grasp so this chapter is divided into two sections. The first describes transformations and their syntax, and the second illustrates transformations with demos. Transformations are like mirrors but instead of just copying text from the original tabstop verbatim, a regular expression is matched to the content of the referenced tabstop and a transformation is then applied to the matched pattern. The syntax and functionality of transformations in UltiSnips follow very closely to TextMate transformations. A transformation has the following syntax: > ${ tab_stop_no - The number of the tabstop to reference regular_expression - The regular expression the value of the referenced tabstop is matched on replacement - The replacement string, explained in detail below options - Options for the regular expression The options can be any combination of > g - global replace By default, only the first match of the regular expression is replaced. With this option all matches are replaced. i - case insensitive By default, regular expression matching is case sensitive. With this option, matching is done without regard to case. m - multiline By default, the '^' and '$' special characters only apply to the start and end of the entire string; so if you select multiple lines, transformations are made on them entirely as a whole single line string. With this option, '^' and '$' special characters match the start or end of any line within a string ( separated by newline character - '\n' ). a - ascii conversion By default, transformation are made on the raw utf-8 string. With this option, matching is done on the corresponding ASCII string instead, for example 'à' will become 'a'. This option required the python package 'unidecode'. The syntax of regular expressions is beyond the scope of this document. Python regular expressions are used internally, so the python 're' module can be used as a guide. See http://docs.python.org/library/re.html. The syntax for the replacement string is unique. The next paragraph describes it in detail. 4.7.1 Replacement String: *UltiSnips-replacement-string* The replacement string can contain $no variables, e.g., $1, which reference matched groups in the regular expression. The $0 variable is special and yields the whole match. The replacement string can also contain special escape sequences: > \u - Uppercase next letter \l - Lowercase next letter \U - Uppercase everything till the next \E \L - Lowercase everything till the next \E \E - End upper or lowercase started with \L or \U \n - A newline \t - A literal tab Finally, the replacement string can contain conditional replacements using the syntax (?no:text:other text). This reads as follows: if the group $no has matched, insert "text", otherwise insert "other text". "other text" is optional and if not provided defaults to the empty string, "". This feature is very powerful. It allows you to add optional text into snippets. 4.7.2 Demos: *UltiSnips-demos* Transformations are very powerful but often the syntax is convoluted. Hopefully the demos below help illustrate transformation features. Demo: Uppercase one character ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > snippet title "Title transformation" ${1:a text} ${1/\w+\s*/\u$0/} endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- titlebig small -> big small Big small Demo: Uppercase one character and global replace ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > snippet title "Titlelize in the Transformation" ${1:a text} ${1/\w+\s*/\u$0/g} endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- titlethis is a title -> this is a title This Is A Title Demo: ASCII transformation ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > snippet ascii "Replace non ascii chars" ${1: an accentued text} ${1/.*/$0/a} endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- asciià la pêche aux moules à la pêche aux moules a la peche aux moules Demo: Regular expression grouping This is a clever c-like printf snippet, the second tabstop is only shown when there is a format (%) character in the first tabstop. ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > snippet printf printf("${1:%s}\n"${1/([^%]|%%)*(%.)?.*/(?2:, :\);)/}$2${1/([^%]|%%)*(%.)?.*/(?2:\);)/} endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- printfHello // End of line -> printf("Hello\n"); // End of line But printfA is: %sA // End of line -> printf("A is: %s\n", A); // End of line There are many more examples of what can be done with transformations in the vim-snippets repo. 4.8 Clearing snippets *UltiSnips-clearing-snippets* To remove snippets for the current file type, use the 'clearsnippets' directive. ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > clearsnippets < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- 'clearsnippets' removes all snippets with a priority lower than the current one. For example, the following cleares all snippets that have priority <= 1, even though the example snippet is defined after the 'clearsnippets'. ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > priority 1 clearsnippets priority -1 snippet example "Cleared example" This will never be expanded. endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- To clear one or more specific snippet, provide the triggers of the snippets as arguments to the 'clearsnippets' command. The following example will clear the snippets 'trigger1' and 'trigger2'. ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > clearsnippets trigger1 trigger2 < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- 4.9 Custom context snippets *UltiSnips-custom-context-snippets* Custom context snippets can be enabled by using the 'e' option in the snippet definition. In that case snippet should be defined using this syntax: > snippet trigger_word "description" "expression" options The context can also be defined using a special header: > context "python_expression" snippet trigger_word "description" options The 'expression' can be any python expression. If 'expression' evaluates to 'True', then this snippet will be eligible for expansion. The 'expression' must be wrapped with double-quotes. The following python modules are automatically imported into the scope before 'expression' is evaluated: 're', 'os', 'vim', 'string', 'random'. Global variable `snip` will be available with following properties: 'snip.window' - alias for 'vim.current.window' 'snip.buffer' - alias for 'vim.current.window.buffer' 'snip.cursor' - cursor object, which behaves like 'vim.current.window.cursor', but zero-indexed and with following additional methods: - 'preserve()' - special method for executing pre/post/jump actions; - 'set(line, column)' - sets cursor to specified line and column; - 'to_vim_cursor()' - returns 1-indexed cursor, suitable for assigning to 'vim.current.window.cursor'; 'snip.line' and 'snip.column' - aliases for cursor position (zero-indexed); 'snip.visual_mode' - ('v', 'V', '^V', see |visual-mode|); 'snip.visual_text' - last visually-selected text; 'snip.last_placeholder' - last active placeholder from previous snippet with following properties: - 'current_text' - text in the placeholder on the moment of selection; - 'start' - placeholder start on the moment of selection; - 'end' - placeholder end on the moment of selection; 'snip.before' - contains the text in the current line up to and including the matched snippet. Since 'snip.column' counts bytes, not characters, this is **not** equivalent to 'snip.buffer[snip.line][:snip.column+1]'. This property is only available in the scope of contexts but not in that of actions. For regular expression triggered snippets the variable `match` will contain the return value of the match of the regular expression. See http://docs.python.org/library/re.html#match-objects. ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > snippet r "return" "re.match('^\s+if err ', snip.buffer[snip.line-1])" be return err endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- That snippet will expand to 'return err' only if the previous line is starting from 'if err' prefix. Note: custom context snippets are prioritized over other snippets. It makes possible to use other snippets as a fallback if no context can be matched: ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > snippet i "if ..." b if $1 { $2 } endsnippet snippet i "if err != nil" "re.match('^\s+[^=]*err\s*:?=', snip.buffer[snip.line-1])" be if err != nil { $1 } endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- That snippet will expand into 'if err != nil' if the previous line will match 'err :=' prefix, otherwise the default 'if' snippet will be expanded. It's a good idea to move context conditions to a separate module, so it can be used by other UltiSnips users. In that case, module should be imported using 'global' keyword, like this: ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > global !p import my_utils endglobal snippet , "return ..., nil/err" "my_utils.is_return_argument(snip)" ie , `!p if my_utils.is_in_err_condition(): snip.rv = "err" else: snip.rv = "nil"` endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- That snippet will expand only if the cursor is located in the return statement, and then it will expand either to 'err' or to 'nil' depending on which 'if' statement it's located. 'is_return_argument' and 'is_in_err_condition' are part of custom python module which is called 'my_utils' in this example. Context condition can return any value which python can use as condition in it's 'if' statement, and if it's considered 'True', then snippet will be expanded. The evaluated value of 'condition' is available in the 'snip.context' variable inside the snippet: ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > snippet + "var +=" "re.match('\s*(.*?)\s*:?=', snip.buffer[snip.line-1])" ie `!p snip.rv = snip.context.group(1)` += $1 endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- That snippet will expand to 'var1 +=' after line, which begins from 'var1 :='. *UltiSnips-capture-placeholder* You can capture placeholder text from the previous snippet by using the following trick: ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > snippet = "desc" "snip.last_placeholder" Ae `!p snip.rv = snip.context.current_text` == nil endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- That snippet will be expanded only if you will replace selected tabstop in other snippet (like, as in 'if ${1:var}') and will replace that tabstop by tabstop value following by ' == nil'. 4.10 Snippets actions *UltiSnips-snippet-actions* --------------------- A snippet action is an arbitrary python code which can be executed at specific points in the lifetime of a snippet expansion. There are three types of actions: * Pre-expand - invoked just after trigger condition was matched, but before snippet actually expanded; * Post-expand - invoked after snippet was expanded and interpolations were applied for the first time, but before jump on the first placeholder. * Jump - invoked just after a jump to the next/prev placeholder. Specified code will be evaluated at stages defined above and same global variables and modules will be available that are stated in the |UltiSnips-custom-context-snippets| section (except 'snip.before'). *UltiSnips-buffer-proxy* Note: special variable called 'snip.buffer' should be used for all buffer modifications. Not 'vim.current.buffer' and not 'vim.command("...")', because in that case UltiSnips will not be able to track changes to the buffer correctly. 'snip.buffer' has the same interface as 'vim.current.window.buffer'. 4.10.1 Pre-expand actions *UltiSnips-pre-expand-actions* Pre-expand actions can be used to match snippet in one location and then expand it in the different location. Some useful cases are: correcting indentation for snippet; expanding snippet for function declaration in another function body with moving expansion point beyond initial function; performing extract method refactoring via expanding snippet in different place. Pre-expand action declared as follows: > pre_expand "python code here" snippet ... endsnippet Buffer can be modified in pre-expand action code through variable called 'snip.buffer', snippet expansion position will be automatically adjusted. If cursor line (where trigger was matched) need to be modified, then special variable method 'snip.cursor.set(line, column)' must be called with the desired cursor position. In that case UltiSnips will not remove any matched trigger text and it should be done manually in action code. To addition to the scope variables defined above 'snip.visual_content' will be also declared and will contain text that was selected before snippet expansion (similar to $VISUAL placeholder). Following snippet will be expanded at 4 spaces indentation level no matter where it was triggered. ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > pre_expand "snip.buffer[snip.line] = ' '*4; snip.cursor.set(snip.line, 4)" snippet d def $1(): $0 endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- Following snippet will move the selected code to the end of file and create new method definition for it: ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > pre_expand "del snip.buffer[snip.line]; snip.buffer.append(''); snip.cursor.set(len(snip.buffer)-1, 0)" snippet x def $1(): ${2:${VISUAL}} endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- 4.10.2 Post-expand actions *UltiSnips-post-expand-actions* Post-expand actions can be used to perform some actions based on the expanded snippet text. Some cases are: code style formatting (e.g. inserting newlines before and after method declaration), and apply actions depending on python interpolation result. Post-expand action declared as follows: > post_expand "python code here" snippet ... endsnippet Buffer can be modified in post-expand action code through variable called 'snip.buffer', snippet expansion position will be automatically adjusted. Variables 'snip.snippet_start' and 'snip.snippet_end' will be defined at the action code scope and will point to positions of the start and end of expanded snippet accordingly in the form '(line, column)'. Note: 'snip.snippet_start' and 'snip.snippet_end' will automatically adjust to the correct positions if post-action will insert or delete lines before expansion. Following snippet will expand to method definition and automatically insert additional newline after end of the snippet. It's very useful to create a function that will insert as many newlines as required in specific context. ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > post_expand "snip.buffer[snip.snippet_end[0]+1:snip.snippet_end[0]+1] = ['']" snippet d "Description" b def $1(): $2 endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- 4.10.3 Post-jump actions *UltiSnips-post-jump-actions* Post-jump actions can be used to trigger some code based on user input into the placeholders. Notable use cases: expand another snippet after jump or anonymous snippet after last jump (e.g. perform move method refactoring and then insert new method invokation); insert heading into TOC after last jump. Jump-expand action declared as follows: > post_jump "python code here" snippet ... endsnippet Buffer can be modified in post-jump action code through variable called 'snip.buffer', snippet expansion position will be automatically adjusted. Next variables and methods will be also defined in the action code scope: * 'snip.tabstop' - number of tabstop jumped onto; * 'snip.jump_direction' - '1' if jumped forward and '-1' otherwise; * 'snip.tabstops' - list with tabstop objects, see above; * 'snip.snippet_start' - (line, column) of start of the expanded snippet; * 'snip.snippet_end' - (line, column) of end of the expanded snippet; * 'snip.expand_anon()' - alias for 'UltiSnips_Manager.expand_anon()'; Tabstop object has several useful properties: * 'start' - (line, column) of the starting position of the tabstop (also accessible as 'tabstop.line' and 'tabstop.col'). * 'end' - (line, column) of the ending position; * 'current_text' - text inside the tabstop. Following snippet will insert section in the Table of Contents in the vim-help file: ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > post_jump "if snip.tabstop == 0: insert_toc_item(snip.tabstops[1], snip.buffer)" snippet s "section" b `!p insert_delimiter_0(snip, t)`$1`!p insert_section_title(snip, t)` `!p insert_delimiter_1(snip, t)` $0 endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- 'insert_toc_item' will be called after first jump and will add newly entered section into the TOC for current file. Note: It is also possible to trigger snippet expansion from the jump action. In that case method 'snip.cursor.preserve()' should be called, so UltiSnips will know that cursor is already at the required position. Following example will insert method call at the end of file after user jump out of method declaration snippet. ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > global !p def insert_method_call(name): vim.command('normal G') snip.expand_anon(name + '($1)\n') endglobal post_jump "if snip.tabstop == 0: insert_method_call(snip.tabstops[1].current_text)" snippet d "method declaration" b def $1(): $2 endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- 4.11 Autotrigger *UltiSnips-autotrigger* ---------------- Many language constructs can occur only at specific places, so it's possible to use snippets without manually triggering them. Snippet can be marked as autotriggered by specifying 'A' option in the snippet definition. After snippet is defined as being autotriggered, snippet condition will be checked on every typed character and if condition matches, then the snippet will be triggered. *Warning:* using of this feature might lead to significant vim slowdown. If you discovered that, please report an issue. If you want to temporarily disable autotriggering, the `autotrigger` behavior can be toggled via |UltiSnips#ToggleAutoTrigger|. By default it is enabled, but it is possible to customize it with |g:UltiSnipsAutoTrigger|. Consider following useful Go snippets: ------------------- SNIP ------------------- > snippet "^p" "package" rbA package ${1:main} endsnippet snippet "^m" "func main" rbA func main() { $1 } endsnippet < ------------------- SNAP ------------------- When "p" character will occur in the beginning of the line, it will be automatically expanded into "package main". Same with "m" character. There is no need to press the trigger key after "m" ============================================================================== 5. UltiSnips and Other Plugins *UltiSnips-other-plugins* 5.1 Existing Integrations *UltiSnips-integrations* ------------------------- UltiSnips has built-in support for some common plugins and there are others that are aware of UltiSnips and use it to improve the user experience. This is an incomplete list - if you want to have your plugin listed here, just send a pull request. *UltiSnips-snipMate* snipMate - UltiSnips is a drop-in replacement for snipMate. It has many more features, so porting snippets is still a good idea, but switching has low friction. UltiSnips is trying hard to truly emulate snipMate, for example recursive tabstops are not supported in snipMate snippets (but of course in UltiSnips snippets). YouCompleteMe - comes with out of the box completion support for UltiSnips. It offers a really nice completion dialogue for snippets. neocomplete - UltiSnips ships with a source for neocomplete and therefore offers out of the box completion dialogue support for it too. deoplete - The successor of neocomplete is also supported. The completion source is called 'ultisnips'. vim-easycomplete - Vim-EasyComplete needs ultisnips and vim-snippets for snippets support. This two plugin is compatible with EasyComplete out of the box. More information: unite - UltiSnips has a source for unite. As an example of how you can use it add the following function and mappings to your vimrc: > function! UltiSnipsCallUnite() Unite -start-insert -winheight=100 -immediately -no-empty ultisnips return '' endfunction inoremap =(pumvisible()? "\C-E>":"")=UltiSnipsCallUnite() nnoremap a=(pumvisible()? "\C-E>":"")=UltiSnipsCallUnite() When typing in either insert or normal mode you will get the unite interface with matching snippets. Pressing enter will expand the corresponding snippet. If only one snippet matches the text in front of the cursor will be expanded when you press the key. Supertab - UltiSnips has built-in support for Supertab. Just use a recent enough version of both plugins and will either expand a snippet or defer to Supertab for expansion. 5.2 Extending UltiSnips *UltiSnips-extending* ------------------------- UltiSnips allows other plugins to add new snippets on the fly. Since UltiSnips is written in python, the integration is also on a python basis. A small example can be found in `test/test_UltiSnipsFunc.py`, search for AddNewSnippetSource. Please contact us on github if you integrate UltiSnips with your plugin so it can be listed in the docs. ============================================================================= 6. Debugging *UltiSnips-Debugging* UltiSnips comes with a remote debugger disabled by default. When authoring a complex snippet with python code, you may want to be able to set breakpoints to inspect variables. It is also useful when debugging UltiSnips itself. See |UltiSnips-Advanced-Debugging| for more informations ============================================================================= 7. FAQ *UltiSnips-FAQ* Q: Do I have to call UltiSnips#ExpandSnippet() to check if a snippet is expandable? Is there instead an analog of neosnippet#expandable? A: Yes there is, try function UltiSnips#IsExpandable() return !empty(UltiSnips#SnippetsInCurrentScope()) endfunction Consider that UltiSnips#SnippetsInCurrentScope() will return all the snippets you have if you call it after a space character. If you want UltiSnips#IsExpandable() to return false when you call it after a space character use this a bit more complicated implementation: function UltiSnips#IsExpandable() return !( \ col('.') <= 1 \ || !empty(matchstr(getline('.'), '\%' . (col('.') - 1) . 'c\s')) \ || empty(UltiSnips#SnippetsInCurrentScope()) \ ) endfunction ============================================================================= 8. Helping Out *UltiSnips-helping* UltiSnips needs the help of the Vim community to keep improving. Please consider joining this effort by providing new features or bug reports. * Clone the repository on GitHub (git clone git@github.com:SirVer/ultisnips.git), make your changes and send a pull request on GitHub. * Make a patch, report a bug/feature request (see below) and attach the patch to it. You can contribute by fixing or reporting bugs in our issue tracker: https://github.com/sirver/ultisnips/issues ============================================================================= 9. Contributors *UltiSnips-contributors* UltiSnips has been started and maintained from Jun 2009 - Dec 2015 by Holger Rapp (@SirVer, SirVer@gmx.de). Up to April 2018 it was maintained by Stanislav Seletskiy (@seletskiy). Now, it is maintained by a growing set of contributors. This is the list of contributors pre-git in chronological order. For a full list of contributors take the union of this set and the authors according to git log. JCEB - Jan Christoph Ebersbach Michael Henry Chris Chambers Ryan Wooden rupa - Rupa Deadwyler Timo Schmiade blueyed - Daniel Hahler expelledboy - Anthony Jackson allait - Alexey Bezhan peacech - Charles Gunawan guns - Sung Pae shlomif - Shlomi Fish pberndt - Phillip Berndt thanatermesis-elive - Thanatermesis rico-ambiescent - Rico Sta. Cruz Cody Frazer suy - Alejandro Exojo grota - Giuseppe Rota iiijjjii - Jim Karsten fgalassi - Federico Galassi lucapette Psycojoker - Laurent Peuch aschrab - Aaron Schrab stardiviner - NagatoPain skeept - Jorge Rodrigues buztard stephenmckinney - Steve McKinney Pedro Algarvio - s0undt3ch Eric Van Dewoestine - ervandew Matt Patterson - fidothe Mike Morearty - mmorearty Stanislav Golovanov - JazzCore David Briscoe - DavidBriscoe Keith Welch - paralogiki Zhao Cai - zhaocai John Szakmeister - jszakmeister Jonas Diemer - diemer Romain Giot - rgiot Sergey Alexandrov - taketwo Brian Mock - saikobee Gernot Höflechner - LFDM Marcelo D Montu - mMontu Karl Yngve Lervåg - lervag Pedro Ferrari - petobens Ches Martin - ches Christian - Oberon00 Andrew Ruder - aeruder Mathias Fußenegger - mfussenegger Kevin Ballard - kballard Ahbong Chang - cwahbong Glenn Griffin - ggriffiniii Michael - Pyrohh Stanislav Seletskiy - seletskiy Pawel Palucki - ppalucki Dettorer - dettorer Zhao Jiarong - kawing-chiu Ye Ding - dyng Greg Hurrell - wincent vim:tw=78:ts=8:ft=help:norl: