vim_diff.txt Nvim NVIM REFERENCE MANUAL
Differences between Nvim and Vim vim-differences
Nvim differs from Vim in many ways, big and small. This document is a complete and centralized reference of those differences. Type gO to see the table of contents.
1. Configuration nvim-configuration
- Use $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nvim/init.viminstead of.vimrcfor storingconfiguration. - Use $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nviminstead of.vimto store configuration files.- Use $XDG_DATA_HOME/nvim/shada/main.shadainstead of.viminfofor persistentsession information.
2. Defaults nvim-defaults
- Syntax highlighting is enabled by default - ":filetype plugin indent on" is enabled by default - 'autoindent' is set by default - 'autoread' is set by default - 'backspace' defaults to "indent,eol,start" - 'backupdir' defaults to .,~/.local/share/nvim/backup (xdg) - 'belloff' defaults to "all" - 'complete' doesn't include "i" - 'cscopeverbose' is enabled - 'directory' defaults to ~/.local/share/nvim/swap// (xdg), auto-created - 'display' defaults to "lastline" - 'formatoptions' defaults to "tcqj" - 'history' defaults to 10000 (the maximum) - 'hlsearch' is set by default - 'incsearch' is set by default - 'langnoremap' is enabled by default - 'langremap' is disabled by default - 'laststatus' defaults to 2 (statusline is always shown) - 'listchars' defaults to "tab:> ,trail:-,nbsp:+" - 'nocompatible' is always set - 'nrformats' defaults to "bin,hex" - 'ruler' is set by default - 'sessionoptions' doesn't include "options" - 'showcmd' is set by default - 'smarttab' is set by default - 'tabpagemax' defaults to 50 - 'tags' defaults to "./tags;,tags" - 'ttyfast' is always set - 'undodir' defaults to ~/.local/share/nvim/undo (xdg), auto-created - 'viminfo' includes "!" - 'wildmenu' is set by default
3. New Features nvim-features
MAJOR COMPONENTS API API Lua scripting lua Job control job-control Remote plugins remote-plugin Providers Clipboard provider-clipboard Python plugins provider-python Ruby plugins provider-ruby Shared data shada Embedded terminal terminal VimL parser nvim_parse_expression() XDG base directories xdg USER EXPERIENCE Working intuitively and consistently is a major goal of Nvim.
feature-compile - Nvim always includes ALL features, in contrast to Vim (which ships with various combinations of 100+ optional features). Think of it as a leaner version of Vim's "HUGE" build. This reduces surface area for bugs, and removes a common source of confusion and friction for users. - Nvim avoids features that cannot be provided on all platforms; instead that is delegated to external plugins/extensions. E.g. the -Xplatform-specificoption is "sometimes" available in Vim (with potential surprises: http://stackoverflow.com/q/14635295). - Vim's internal test functions (test_autochdir(), test_settime(), etc.) are not exposed (nor implemented); instead Nvim has a robust API. - Behaviors, options, documentation are removed if they cost users more time than they save. Usability details have been improved where the benefit outweighs any backwards-compatibility cost. Some examples: - K in help documents can be used like CTRL-]. - Directories for 'directory' and 'undodir' are auto-created. - Terminal features such as 'guicursor' are enabled where possible. ARCHITECTURE External plugins run in separate processes. remote-plugin This improves stability and allows those plugins to work without blocking the editor. Even "legacy" Python and Ruby plugins which use the old Vim interfaces (if_py and if_ruby) run out-of-process. Platform and I/O facilities are built upon libuv. Nvim benefits from libuv features and bug fixes, and other projects benefit from improvements to libuv by Nvim developers. FEATURES "Outline": Type gO in :Man and :help pages to see a document outline. META (ALT) chords are recognized, even in the terminal. Any <M- mapping will work. Some examples: <M-1>, <M-2>, <M-BS>, <M-Del>, <M-Ins>, <M-/>, <M-\>, <M-Space>, <M-Enter>, <M-=>, <M-->, <M-?>, <M-$>, ... META chords are case-sensitive: <M-a> and <M-A> are two different keycodes. Some CTRL-SHIFT-...key chords are distinguished fromCTRL-...variants(even in the terminal). Specifically, the following are known to work: <C-Tab>, <C-S-Tab>, <C-BS>, <C-S-BS>, <C-Enter>, <C-S-Enter> Options: 'cpoptions' flags: cpo-_ 'guicursor' works in the terminal 'inccommand' shows interactive results for :substitute-like commands 'scrollback' 'statusline' supports unlimited alignment sections 'tabline' %@Func@foo%X can call any function on mouse-click 'winhighlight' window-local highlights Variables: v:event v:exiting v:progpath is always absolute ("full") v:windowid is always available (for use by external UIs) Commands: :checkhealth :drop is available on all platforms :Man is available by default, with many improvements such as completion :tchdir tab-local current-directory Functions: dictwatcheradd() notifies a callback whenever a Dict is modified dictwatcherdel() menu_get() msgpackdump(), msgpackparse() provide msgpack de/serialization Events: DirChanged TabNewEntered TermClose TermOpen TextYankPost Highlight groups: hl-NormalNC highlights non-current windows hl-QuickFixLine hl-Substitute hl-TermCursor hl-TermCursorNC hl-Whitespace highlights 'listchars' whitespace expr-highlight highlight groups (prefixed with "Nvim") Command-line highlighting: The expression prompt (@=, c_CTRL-R_=, i_CTRL-R_=) is highlighted using a built-in VimL expression parser. expr-highlight E5408 E5409 input(), inputdialog() support custom highlighting. input()-highlight g:Nvim_color_cmdline (Experimental) Command-line (:) is colored by callback defined in g:Nvim_color_cmdline(this callback is for testing only, and will beremoved in the future).
4. Changed features nvim-features-changed
Nvim always builds with all features, in contrast to Vim which may have certain features removed/added at compile-time. This is like if Vim's "HUGE" build was the only Vim release type (except Nvim is smaller than Vim's "HUGE" build). If a Python interpreter is available on your $PATH, :python and :python3are always available and may be used simultaneously in separate plugins. The neovimpip package must be installed to use Python plugins in Nvim (seeprovider-python). Because of general 256-color usage whereever possible, Nvim will even use 256-colour capability on Linux virtual terminals. Vim uses only 8 colours plus bright foreground on Linux VTs. Vim combines what is in its builtin-terms with what it reads from termcap, and has a ttybuiltin setting to control how that combination works. Nvim uses either one or the other of an external terminfo entry or the built-in one. It does not attempt to mix data from the two. :! does not support "interactive" commands. Use :terminal instead. (GUI Vim has a similar limitation, see ":help gui-pty" in Vim.) system() does not support writing/reading "backgrounded" commands. E5677 :redir nested in execute() works. Nvim may throttle (skip) messages from shell commands (:!, :grep, :make) if there is too much output. No data is lost, this only affects display and makes things faster. :terminal output is never throttled. mkdir() behaviour changed: 1. Assuming /tmp/foo does not exist and /tmp can be written to mkdir('/tmp/foo/bar', 'p', 0700) will create both /tmp/foo and /tmp/foo/bar with 0700 permissions. Vim mkdir will create /tmp/foo with 0755. 2. If you try to create an existing directory with 'p'(e.g. mkdir('/','p')) mkdir() will silently exit. In Vim this was an error. 3. mkdir() error messages now include strerror() text when mkdir fails. 'encoding' is always "utf-8". string() and :echo behaviour changed: 1. No maximum recursion depth limit is applied to nested container structures. 2. string() fails immediately on nested containers, not when recursion limit was exceeded. 2. When :echo encounters duplicate containers like
let l = []echo [l, l]
it does not use "[...]" (was: "[[], [...]]", now: "[[], []]"). "..." is only used for recursive containers. 3. :echo printing nested containers adds "@level" after "..." designating the level at which recursive container was printed: :echo-self-refer. Same thing applies to string() (though it uses construct like "{E724@level}"), but this is not reliable because string() continues to error out. 4. Stringifyed infinite and NaN values now use str2float() and can be evaled back. 5. (internal) Trying to print or stringify VAR_UNKNOWN in Vim results in nothing, E908, in Neovim it is internal error. json_decode() behaviour changed: 1. It may output msgpack-special-dict. 2. msgpack-special-dict is emitted also in case of duplicate keys, while in Vim it errors out. 3. It accepts only valid JSON. Trailing commas are not accepted. json_encode() behaviour slightly changed: now msgpack-special-dict values are accepted, but v:none is not. v:none variable is absent. In Vim it represents “no value” in “js” strings like "[,]" parsed as "[v:none]" by js_decode(). js_encode() and js_decode() functions are also absent. Viminfo text files were replaced with binary (messagepack) ShaDa files. Additional differences: - shada-c has no effect. - shada-s now limits size of every item and not just registers. - 'viminfo' option got renamed to 'shada'. Old option is kept as an alias for compatibility reasons. - :wviminfo was renamed to :wshada, :rviminfo to :rshada. Old commands are still kept. - ShaDa file format was designed with forward and backward compatibility in mind. shada-compatibility - Some errors make ShaDa code keep temporary file in-place for user to decide what to do with it. Vim deletes temporary file in these cases. shada-error-handling - ShaDa file keeps search direction (v:searchforward), viminfo does not. printf() returns something meaningful when used with %pargument: in Vimit used to return useless address of the string (strings are copied to the newly allocated memory all over the place) and fail on types which cannot be coerced to strings. See id() for more details, currently it uses printf("%p", {expr})internally.c_CTRL-R pasting a non-special register into cmdline omits the last <CR>. Lua interface (if_lua.txt): - :lua print("a\0b")will printa^@b, like with:echomsg "a\nb". In Vimthat prints aandbon separate lines, exactly like:lua print("a\nb").- :lua error('TEST')will print “TEST” as the error in Vim and “E5105: Errorwhile calling lua chunk: [string "<VimL compiled string>"]:1: TEST” in Neovim. - Lua has direct access to Nvim API via vim.api.- Lua package.path and package.cpath are automatically updated according to 'runtimepath': lua-require. input() and inputdialog() support for each other’s features (return on cancel and completion respectively) via dictionary argument (replaces all other arguments if used). input() and inputdialog() support user-defined cmdline highlighting. Highlight groups: hl-ColorColumn, hl-CursorColumn are lower priority than most other groups VimL (Vim script) compatibility: countdoes not alias to v:count
5. Missing legacy features nvim-features-missing
Some legacy Vim features are not implemented: - if_py: vim.bindeval() and vim.Function() are not supported - if_lua: the vimobject is missing most legacy methods- if_perl - if_mzscheme - if_tcl
6. Removed features nvim-features-removed
These Vim features were intentionally removed from Nvim.
'cp' 'nocompatible' 'nocp' 'compatible' Nvim is always "non-compatible" with Vi. ":set nocompatible" is ignored ":set compatible" is an error
'ed' 'edcompatible' 'noed' 'noedcompatible' Ed-compatible mode: ":set noedcompatible" is ignored ":set edcompatible" is an error
t_xx termcap-options t_AB t_Sb t_vb t_SI Nvim does not have special t_XXoptions nor <t_XX> keycodes to configureterminal capabilities. Instead Nvim treats the terminal as any other UI. For example, 'guicursor' sets the terminal cursor style if possible.
:set-termcap Start Nvim with 'verbose' level 3 to see the terminal capabilities.
nvim -V3'term' E529 E530 E531 'term' reflects the terminal type derived from $TERM and other environment checks. For debugging only; not reliable during startup.
echo &term"builtin_x" means one of the builtin-terms was chosen, because the expected terminfo file was not found on the system.
termcap Nvim never uses the termcap database, only terminfo and builtin-terms.
xterm-8bit xterm-8-bit Xterm can be run in a mode where it uses true 8-bit CSI. Supporting this requires autodetection of whether the terminal is in UTF-8 mode or non-UTF-8 mode, as the 8-bit CSI character has to be written differently in each case. Vim issues a "request version" sequence to the terminal at startup and looks at how the terminal is sending CSI. Nvim does not issue such a sequence and always uses 7-bit control sequences. 'ttyfast': ":set ttyfast" is ignored ":set nottyfast" is an error Encryption support: 'cryptmethod' 'cm' 'key' MS-DOS support: 'bioskey' 'conskey' Test functions: test_alloc_fail() test_autochdir() test_disable_char_avail() test_garbagecollect_now() test_null_channel() test_null_dict() test_null_job() test_null_list() test_null_partial() test_null_string() test_settime() Other options: 'antialias' 'cpoptions' (g j k H w < * - and all POSIX flags were removed) 'encoding' ("utf-8" is always used) 'esckeys' 'guioptions' "t" flag was removed 'guipty' (Nvim uses pipes and PTYs consistently on all platforms.) 'highlight' (Names of builtin highlight-groups cannot be changed.) 'imactivatefunc' 'imaf' 'imactivatekey' 'imak' 'imstatusfunc' 'imsf' 'macatsui' 'restorescreen' 'rs' 'norestorescreen' 'nors' 'shelltype' 'shortname' 'sn' 'noshortname' 'nosn' 'swapsync' 'sws' 'termencoding' 'tenc' (Vim 7.4.852 also removed this for Windows) 'textauto' 'textmode' 'toolbar' 'tb' 'toolbariconsize' 'tbis' 'ttybuiltin' 'tbi' 'nottybuiltin' 'notbi' 'ttymouse' 'ttym' 'ttyscroll' 'tsl' 'ttytype' 'tty' 'weirdinvert' Other commands: :fixdel :helpfind :mode (no longer accepts an argument) :open :shell :smile :tearoff Other compile-time features: EBCDIC Emacs tags support X11 integration (see x11-selection) Nvim does not have a built-in GUI and hence the following aliases have been removed: gvim, gex, gview, rgvim, rgview "Easy mode" (eview, evim, nvim -y) "(g)vimdiff" (alias for "(g)nvim -d" diff-mode) "Vi mode" (nvim -v) The ability to start nvim via the following aliases has been removed in favor of just using their command line arguments: ex nvim -e exim nvim -E view nvim -R rvim nvim -Z rview nvim -RZ
vim:tw=78:ts=8:noet:ft=help:norl: