Is there a better way to map command call based on filetype [duplicate]

Answer 1

if you have BufRead *.py, the autocommand was trigger only when it is loading a *.py buffer/file.

vim has filetype detection mechanism.

Vim can detect the type of file that is edited. This is done by checking the file name and sometimes by inspecting the contents of the file for specific text.

you should switch :filetype on

and use FileType event in your autocmd.

Answer 2

You need to do 2 things:

• Create a mapping local to a specific buffer by using the <buffer> option for noremap.
• Load the mappings for just a specific filetype.

This can be done via an autocmd and FileType event in your .vimrc like so:

autocmd FileType perl noremap <buffer> <F5> :!perl %:p<cr>

The other way option is by creating a filetype plugin. (see :h ftplugin for more details)

A simple example is do create a file named, ~/.vim/ftplugin/perl.vim and place your mappings inside like so:

nnoremap <buffer> <F5> :!perl %:p<cr>

I personally lean more towards the ftplugin approach but having a everything in your .vimrc file can be nice.

For more help see:

:h :au
:h FileType
:h map-local
:h ftplugin