pi_paren.txt ForVim version 9.2. Last change: 2026 Feb 14VIM REFERENCE MANUAL by Bram MoolenaarHighlighting matching parensmatchparenThe functionality mentioned hereisastandard-plugin.Thispluginis only available if'compatible'is not set.You can avoid loading thisplugin by setting the "loaded_matchparen" variable::let loaded_matchparen = 1Theplugin installs CursorMoved,CursorMovedI andWinEnterautocommands toredefine the match highlighting.:NoMatchParen:DoMatchParenTo disable theplugin afterit was loaded use this command::NoMatchParenAnd to enableit again::DoMatchParenThe highlighting usedis MatchParen. You can specify different colors withthe ":highlight" command. Example::hi MatchParen ctermbg=blue guibg=lightblueBy default theplugin will highlight both the paren under the cursor and thematching one using thehl-MatchParen highlighting group. This may result inthe cursor briefly disappearing from the screenas the MatchParen colors takeover the cursor highlight. To prevent this from happening and have thepluginonly highlight the matching paren and not the one under the cursor(effectively leaving the cursor style unchanged), you can set the"matchparen_disable_cursor_hl" variable::let matchparen_disable_cursor_hl = 1The characters to be matched come from the'matchpairs' option. You canchange the value to highlight different matches.Note that not everythingispossible. For example, you can't highlight single or double quotes, becausethe start andend are equal.Thesyntax highlighting attributes are used. When the cursor currentlyis notinastring or commentsyntax item, then matches insidestring and commentsyntax items are ignored. Anysyntax items with "string" or "comment"somewhere in their name are consideredstring or comment items.The searchis limited to avoida delay when moving the cursor. Thelimitsare:- Whatis visible in the window.- 100 lines above or below the cursor to avoida long delay when there are closed folds.-'synmaxcol' times 2 bytes before or after the cursor to avoida delay ina long line withsyntax highlighting.-A timeout of 300 msec (60 msec inInsert mode). This can be changed with the "g:matchparen_timeout" and "g:matchparen_insert_timeout"variables and their buffer-local equivalents "b:matchparen_timeout" and "b:matchparen_insert_timeout".If you would like the% command to work better, thematchitplugin can beused, seematchit-install. Thisplugin also helps to skip matches incomments. Thisis unrelated to thematchparen highlighting, they useadifferent mechanism.============================================================================== vim:tw=78:ts=8:noet:ft=help:norl: