syntastic/README.markdown

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- - -
1\. [Introduction](#introduction)  
2\. [Installation](#installation)  
3\. [FAQ](#faq)  
4\. [Other resources](#otherresources)  
- - -

<a name="introduction"></a>

## 1\. Introduction

Syntastic is a syntax checking plugin for Vim that runs files through external
syntax checkers and displays any resulting errors to the user. This can be done
on demand, or automatically as files are saved. If syntax errors are detected,
the user is notified and is happy because they didn't have to compile their
code or execute their script to find them.

At the time of this writing, syntax checking plugins exist for ActionScript,
Ada, AppleScript, AsciiDoc, ASM, BEMHTML, Bourne shell, C, C++, C#, Chef,
CoffeeScript, Coco, Coq, CSS, Cucumber, CUDA, D, Dart, DocBook, Dust, Elixir,
Erlang, eRuby, Fortran, Gentoo metadata, GLSL, Go, Haml, Haskell, Haxe,
Handlebars, HSS, HTML, Java, JavaScript, JSON, LESS, Lex, Limbo, LISP,
LLVM intermediate language, Lua, MATLAB, NASM, Objective-C, Objective-C++,
OCaml, Perl, Perl POD, PHP, gettext Portable Object, Puppet, Python, Racket,
reStructuredText, Ruby, Rust, SASS/SCSS, Scala, Slim, Tcl, TeX, Texinfo, Twig,
TypeScript, Vala, Verilog, VHDL, VimL, xHtml, XML, XSLT, YACC, YAML, z80, Zope
page templates, zsh.

Below is a screenshot showing the methods that Syntastic uses to display syntax
errors.  Note that, in practise, you will only have a subset of these methods
enabled.

![Screenshot 1][0]

1. Errors are loaded into the location list for the corresponding window.
2. When the cursor is on a line containing an error, the error message is echoed in the command window.
3. Signs are placed beside lines with errors - note that warnings are displayed in a different color.
4. There is a configurable statusline flag you can include in your statusline config.
5. Hover the mouse over a line containing an error and the error message is displayed as a balloon.
6. (not shown) Highlighting errors with syntax highlighting. Erroneous parts of lines can be highlighted.

<a name="installation"></a>

## 2\. Installation

Installing syntastic is easy but first you need to have the pathogen plugin installed.  If you already
have pathogen working then skip Step 1 and go to Step 2.

<a name="step1"></a>

### 2.1\. Step 1: Install pathogen.vim

First I'll show you how to install tpope's [pathogen.vim][1] so that it's
easy to install syntastic.  Do this in your Terminal so that you get the
pathogen.vim file and the directories it needs:

    mkdir -p ~/.vim/autoload ~/.vim/bundle; \
    curl -so ~/.vim/autoload/pathogen.vim \
        https://raw.github.com/tpope/vim-pathogen/master/autoload/pathogen.vim

Next you *need to add this* to your ~/.vimrc:

        execute pathogen#infect()

<a name="step2"></a>

### 2.2\. Step 2: Install syntastic as a pathogen bundle

You now have pathogen installed and can put syntastic into ~/.vim/bundle like this:
    

    cd ~/.vim/bundle
    git clone https://github.com/scrooloose/syntastic.git

Quit vim and start it back up to reload it, then type:

    :Helptags

If you get an error when you do this, then you probably didn't install pathogen right.  Go back to
step 1 and make sure you did the following:

1. Created both the ~/.vim/autoload and ~/.vim/bundle directories.
2. Added the "call pathogen#infect()" line to your ~/.vimrc file
3. Did the git clone of syntastic inside ~/.vim/bundle
4. Have permissions to access all of these directories.


<a name="faq"></a>

## 3\. FAQ

__Q. I installed syntastic but it isn't reporting any errors...__

A. The most likely reason is that none of the syntax checkers that it requires
is installed. For example: python requires either `flake8`, `pyflakes`
or `pylint` to be installed and in `$PATH`. To see which executables are
supported, just look in `syntax_checkers/<filetype>/*.vim`. Note that aliases
do not work; the actual executable must be available in your `$PATH`. Symbolic
links are okay.  You can see syntastic's idea of available checkers by running
`:SyntasticInfo`.

Another reason it could fail is that either the command line options or the
error output for a syntax checker may have changed. In this case, make sure you
have the latest version of the syntax checker installed. If it still fails then
create an issue - or better yet, create a pull request.

__Q. Recently some of my syntax checker options have stopped working...__

A. The options are still there, they have just been renamed. Recently,
almost all syntax checkers were refactored to use the new `makeprgBuild()`
function. This made a lot of the old explicit options redundant - as they are
now implied. The new implied options usually have slightly different names to
the old options.

e.g. Previously there was `g:syntastic_phpcs_conf`, now you must use
`g:syntastic_php_phpcs_args`. This completely overrides the arguments of
the checker, including any defaults, so you may need to look up the default
arguments of the checker and add these in.

See `:help syntastic-checker-options` for more information.

__Q. I run a checker and the location list is not updated...__

A. By default, the location list is changed only when you run the `:Errors`
command, in order to minimise conflicts with other plugins.  If you want the
location list to always be updated when you run the checkers, add this line to
your vimrc:
```vim
let g:syntastic_always_populate_loc_list=1
```

__Q. How can I pass additional arguments to a checker?__

A. Almost all syntax checkers use the `makeprgBuild()` function. Those checkers
that do can be configured using global variables. The general form of the
global args variables are:
```vim
syntastic_<filetype>_<subchecker>_args
```

So, If you wanted to pass "--my --args --here" to the ruby mri checker you
would add this line to your vimrc:
```vim
let g:syntastic_ruby_mri_args="--my --args --here"
```

See `:help syntastic-checker-options` for more information.

__Q. Syntastic supports several checkers for my filetype - how do I tell it
which one(s) to use?__

A. Stick a line like this in your vimrc:
```vim
let g:syntastic_<filetype>_checkers=['<checker-name>']
```

To see the list of checkers for your filetype, look in
`syntax_checkers/<filetype>/`.

e.g. Python has the following checkers: `flake8`, `pyflakes`, `pylint` and a
native `python` checker.

To tell syntastic to use `pylint`, you would use this setting:
```vim
let g:syntastic_python_checkers=['pylint']
```

Some filetypes, like PHP, have style checkers as well as syntax checkers. These
can be chained together like this:
```vim
let g:syntastic_php_checkers=['php', 'phpcs', 'phpmd']
```

This is telling syntastic to run the `php` checker first, and if no errors are
found, run `phpcs`, and then `phpmd`.

__Q. How can I jump between the different errors without using the location
list at the bottom of the window?__

A. Vim provides several built in commands for this. See `:help :lnext` and
`:help :lprev`.

If you use these commands a lot then you may want to add shortcut mappings to
your vimrc, or install something like [unimpaired][2], which provides such
mappings (among other things).

__Q. A syntax checker is giving me unwanted/strange style tips?__

A. Some filetypes (e.g. php) have style checkers as well as syntax
checkers. You can usually configure the options that are passed to the style
checkers, or just disable them. Take a look at the [wiki][3] to see what
options are available.

__Q. The error window is closed automatically when I :quit the current buffer
but not when I :bdelete it?__

A. There is no safe way to handle that situation automatically, but you can
work around it:

```vim
nnoremap <silent> <C-d> :lclose<CR>:bdelete<CR>
cabbrev <silent> bd lclose\|bdelete
```


<a name="otherresources"></a>

## 4\. Other resources

The preferred place for posting suggestions, reporting bugs, and general
discussions related to syntastic is the [issue tracker at GitHub][4].  There
are also a [google group][5], and a [syntastic tag at StackOverflow][6].

Syntastic aims to provide a common interface to syntax checkers for as many
languages as possible.  For particular languages, there are, of course, other
plugins that provide more functionality than syntastic.  You might want to take
a look at [jedi-vim][7], [python-mode][8], or [YouCompleteMe][9].

[0]: https://github.com/scrooloose/syntastic/raw/master/_assets/screenshot_1.png
[1]: https://github.com/tpope/vim-pathogen
[2]: https://github.com/tpope/vim-unimpaired
[3]: https://github.com/scrooloose/syntastic/wiki/Syntax-Checkers
[4]: https://github.com/scrooloose/syntastic/issues
[5]: https://groups.google.com/group/vim-syntastic
[6]: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/syntastic
[7]: https://github.com/davidhalter/jedi-vim
[8]: https://github.com/klen/python-mode
[9]: https://github.com/Valloric/YouCompleteMe