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I love vim's colorization of /var/log/messages, but it only works for that – the absolute filename. It doesn't work for older rotations of messages (e.g. /var/log/messages-20120610) or for messages files I get from other systems. How can I tweak this?

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2 Answers 2

up vote 11 down vote accepted

When you have the file open, you can run:

:set filetype=messages

To automate this for all files called messages, put the following into ~/.vim/ftdetect/messages.vim:

autocmd BufNewFile,BufReadPost *messages* :set filetype=messages
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BRILLIANT! I'll be using "messages*", but this is exactly what I wanted. I love it. Thank you so much. –  ryran Jun 28 '12 at 0:59

add a line in ~/.vim/filetype.vim,

au BufNewfile,BufRead messages-* set filetype=messages
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Thanks for responding chris. Didn't work for me. –  ryran Jun 28 '12 at 1:01
chris, did you mean ftdetect.vim? –  Stefan Majewsky Sep 12 '12 at 11:57
No, ~/.vim/ftdetect/ is a directory, ~/.vim/filetype.vim, all au BufNewfile,BufRead ... set ft=.. can put in this file. more simple. –  NagatoPain Sep 12 '12 at 22:43

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