PHP Syntax checking

By pressing <CTRL>+B in command mode, the current file will be given to the PHP CLI to perform a syntax check. Since I have PHP4 and PHP5 installed in paralell I call "php4" for checking. This has to be changed depending on your system.

PEAR package

By pressing <CTRL>+P in command mode, the current file will be called with the "pear package" command, which will build a package as defined in the file. Though, the file currently edited should be a package.xml.

Standard compliant indentation

Indentation will be performed automatically (forth and back) using 4 spaces.

Line numbers

Line numbers will be diplayed in front of the code by default.

Incremental search

While searching for a pattern, VIM will jump to the next occurence of the current pattern while you type.

Automatic completion of delimiters

Delimiters like brackets and quotes will be automatically completed. The cursor will afterwards reside between the delimiters. E.g.: You type " and will end up between "".

Auto completion for PHP functions

You just have to hit <CTRL>+K when you typed the beginning of a PHP function to get it completed automatically or get a list of possible completions. (Attention the function list provided by Rasmus is needed! You also have to customize the location of it to fulfill the needs of your environment!)

Code templates

Automatically generated code templates are available in editor mode through specific strings. For example one can type =pfu and get a skeleton for a private method, including documentation using phpdoc tags. The available code templates are:

Comments

Another great feature in vim, is the ability to work with several files at the same time. Add this to .vimrc:

" Allow editing of several files without having to save the current one, before moving to another set hidden " map F12 to close a buffer map <F12> :db^M " Move to next buffer map ^N :bn^M " Move to previous buffer map ^B :bp^M " List open buffers map ^L :ls^M

Then use the 'e' command like:

e: text.php

This will open text.php in a seperat buffer, and with CTRL-n or CTRL-p you can navigate between them.