Align text on an equals sign in vim

Question

I tend to align code on equal signs for better readability. From this:

$ = jQuery.sub()
Survey = App.Survey
Sidebar = App.Sidebar
Main = App.Main


        

Answer 1

I believe this is easily done with the Tabular plugin. Here it is in action.

Select the range in Visual mode (not actually necessary), and do:

:Tabularize /=

The plugin can actually find the correct range on its own often, without needing to select it visually or specify a range to the ex command.

Answer 2

The vim-easy-align plugin does that as well. Here is one of the many examples given:

Answer 3

The best plugin I found so far is Tabular.vim.

Easiest way to install it is by using the Pathogen plugin, and then cloning the Tabular git repository to ~/.vim/bundle/tabular. Full instructions in the Pathogen README.

After it's installed, using it is just a matter of putting your cursor somewhere in the paragraph you want to align and running:

:Tab /=

Answer 4

This isn't the easiest way to do things, but it can be done without any plugins.

• Use V and :s/=/ =/ to insert a bunch of spaces before each equals sign.
• Use Ctrl-V to select the column that you want the equals signs to be moved into.
• Press << to "unindent" the right hand side of each equation towards the column you selected, then press . repeatedly until the equals signs are lined up in that column.

Answer 5

Install tabularize plugin and modify gist by tpope to something like this :

inoremap <silent> :   :<Esc>:call <SID>align(':')<CR>a
inoremap <silent> =   =<Esc>:call <SID>align('=')<CR>a

function! s:align(aa)
  let p = '^.*\s'.a:aa.'\s.*$'
  if exists(':Tabularize') && (getline(line('.')-1) =~# p || getline(line('.')+1) =~# p)
    let column = strlen(substitute(getline('.')[0:col('.')],'[^'.a:aa.']','','g'))
    let position = strlen(matchstr(getline('.')[0:col('.')],'.*'.a:aa.':\s*\zs.*'))
    exec 'Tabularize/'.a:aa.'/l1'
    normal! 0
    call search(repeat('[^'.a:aa.']*'.a:aa,column).'\s\{-\}'.repeat('.',position),'ce',line('.'))
  endif
endfunction

Answer 6

For a simple solution that does not involve installing a plugin, just filter through the Unix column command.

Note there are two ways to do this depending on whether your column command supports -o.

GNU column command (Linux etc)

:% ! column -t -s= -o=

That's it.

BSD column command (Mac OS X etc)

Step one, filter through column -t:

:% ! column -t

Step two, remove the padding around the delimiter:

:%s/ = /=/

Initial text is

$ = jQuery.sub()
Survey = App.Survey
Sidebar = App.Sidebar
Main = App.Main

After step one it becomes

$        =  jQuery.sub()
Survey   =  App.Survey
Sidebar  =  App.Sidebar
Main     =  App.Main

And after step two

$       = jQuery.sub()
Survey  = App.Survey
Sidebar = App.Sidebar
Main    = App.Main

Or, if you want to do it in one step:

:% ! column -t | sed 's/ = /=/'

For more info, man column.