How to configure Syntastic with JSHint?

Question

How to use the Syntastic Vim plugin with JSHint to validate JavaScript code?

Environment:

• Ubuntu 11.04
• VIM - Vi IMproved 7.3

What I

Answer 1

I just had this same problem. Turns out, Syntastic looks for jsl (JSLint) before it looks for jshint. If you have both installed, you'll likely be misled. I moved jsl somewhere not in my PATH, and jshint was detected just fine.

Source:
https://github.com/scrooloose/syntastic/pull/47

Answer 2

Here is a more updated info, there is a configuration to associate a file extension to a checker,
in your .vimrc

let g:syntastic_javascript_checkers = ['jshint']

Also to get info about what's going on run this command in vim

:SyntasticInfo

And you'll get an output similar to this:

Syntastic info for filetype: javascript  
Available checkers: gjslint jshint  
Currently active checker(s): gjslint  
Press ENTER or type command to continue

Answer 3

I struggled with this issue for days and SyntasticInfo would not recognize jshint as an available checker even after i added let g:syntastic_javascript_checkers['jshint'] to my .vimrc. I am using Ubuntu 15.04 and I followed this tutorial to install nvm, nodejs, and jshint on Ubuntu. After I did that I discovered that if I removed the line filetype plugin indent on from my .vimrc then opened a .js file everything worked perfectly! To summarize...

1. follow the tutorial linked above
2. add ~/.nvm/<version_number>/bin to path in .bashrc
3. remove filetype plugin indent on from .vimrc
4. add let g:syntastic_javascript_checkers['jshint'] to .vimrc
5. :so % inside vim
6. open a .js file
7. add filetype plugin indent on back to your .vimrc
8. everything magically works now