python - gVim and multiple programming languages

Question

My day job involves coding with Perl. At home I play around with Python and Erlang. For Perl I want to indent my code with two spaces. Whereas for Python the standard is 4. Also I have some key bindings to open function declarations which I would like to use with all programming languages. How can this be achieved in gVim?

As in, is there a way to maintain a configuration file for each programming language or something of that sort?

Answer 1

In your $HOME, make .vim/ directory (or vimfiles/ on Windows), in it make ftplugin/ directory, and in it keep files named "perl.vim" or "python.vim" or "html.vim" or ...

These should be loaded automatically when you open/create new file of given filetype as long as you don't forget to add :filetype plugin on in your .vimrc (or _vimrc under windows)

Then, vim options should be defined with :setlocal (and not :set, otherwise their definition will override the default global setting).

Mappings are defined with :n/i/v(nore)map <buffer>, as well as the abbreviations. Commands are defined with the -b option. Menus can't be made local without the help of a plugin.

local, <buffer>, and -b are important to prevent side effects.