Makes the common case easy
- Comes with a predefined set of alignment rules
- Provides a fast and intuitive interface
Extensible
- You can define your own rules
- Supports arbitrary regular expressions
Optimized for code editing
- Takes advantage of syntax highlighting feature to avoid unwanted alignments

Installation

Either download zip file and extract in ~/.vim or use Vundle (recommended) or Pathogen.

With Vundle

Add the following line to your .vimrc,

Bundle 'junegunn/vim-easy-align'

then execute :BundleInstall command.

Usage

vim-easy-align defines :EasyAlign command (and the right-justification variant :EasyAlign!) in the visual mode.

Mode	Command
Interactive mode	`:EasyAlign`
Using predefined rules	`:EasyAlign [FIELD#] DELIMITER_KEY [OPTIONS]`
Using regular expressions	`:EasyAlign [FIELD#] /REGEXP/ [OPTIONS]`

Interactive mode

The command will go into the interactive mode when no argument is given. For convenience, it is advised that you define a mapping for triggering it in your .vimrc.

vnoremap <silent> <Enter> :EasyAlign<cr>

With the mapping, you can align selected lines of text with only a few keystrokes.

<Enter> key to start interactive EasyAlign command
Optional Enter keys to toggle right-justification mode
Optional field number (default: 1)
- 1 Around the 1st occurrences of delimiters
- 2 Around the 2nd occurrences of delimiters
- ...
- * Around all occurrences of delimiters
- ** Left-right alternating alignment around all delimiters
- - Around the last occurrences of delimiters (-1)
- -2 Around the second to last occurrences of delimiters
- ...
Delimiter key (a single keystroke; <space>, =, :, ., |, ,)

Alignment rules for the following delimiters have been defined to meet the most needs.

Delimiter key	Description/Use cases
`<space>`	General alignment around whitespaces
`=`	Operators containing equals sign (`=`, `==,` `!=`, `+=`, `&&=`, ...)
`:`	Suitable for formatting JSON or YAML
`.`	Multi-line method chaining
`,`	Multi-line method arguments
\|	Table markdown

You can override these default rules or define your own rules with g:easy_align_delimiters, which will be described in the later section.

Example command sequences

With visual map	Description	Equivalent command
`<Enter><space>`	Alignment around 1st whitespaces	`:'<,'>EasyAlign\`
`<Enter>2<space>`	Alignment around 2nd whitespaces	`:'<,'>EasyAlign2\`
`<Enter>-<space>`	Alignment around the last whitespaces	`:'<,'>EasyAlign-\`
`<Enter>:`	Alignment around 1st colon	`:'<,'>EasyAlign:`
`<Enter>=`	Alignment around 1st equals signs (and the likes)	`:'<,'>EasyAlign=`
`<Enter>2=`	Alignment around 2nd equals signs (and the likes)	`:'<,'>EasyAlign2=`
`<Enter>3=`	Alignment around 3rd equals signs (and the likes)	`:'<,'>EasyAlign3=`
`<Enter>*=`	Alignment around all equals signs (and the likes)	`:'<,'>EasyAlign*=`
`<Enter>**=`	Left-right alternating alignment around all equals signs	`:'<,'>EasyAlign**=`
`<Enter><Enter>=`	Right-justified alignment around 1st equals signs	`:'<,'>EasyAlign!=`
`<Enter><Enter>**=`	Right-left alternating alignment around all equals signs	`:'<,'>EasyAlign!**=`
...	...

Non-interactive mode

Instead of going into the interactive mode, you can type in arguments to :EasyAlign command. In non-interactive mode, you can even use arbitrary regular expressions.

" Using predefined alignment rules
:EasyAlign[!] [FIELD#] DELIMITER_KEY [OPTIONS]

" Using arbitrary regular expressions
:EasyAlign[!] [FIELD#] /REGEXP/ [OPTIONS]

For example, when aligning the following lines around colons and semi-colons,

apple;:banana::cake
data;;exchange:;format

try these commands:

:EasyAlign /[:;]\+/
:EasyAlign 2/[:;]\+/
:EasyAlign */[:;]\+/
:EasyAlign **/[:;]\+/

Notice that you can't append \zs to your regular expression to put delimiters on the left. It can be done by providing additional options in Vim dictionary format.

:EasyAlign * /[:;]\+/ { 'stick_to_left': 1, 'left_margin': '' }

Then we get:

apple;: banana::   cake
data;;  exchange:; format

Options keys are fuzzy-matched, so you can write as follows:

:EasyAlign * /[:;]\+/ { 'stl': 1, 'l': 0 }

You can even omit spaces between the arguments, so concisely (or cryptically):

:EasyAlign*/[:;]\+/{'s':1,'l':0}

Available options will be shown later in the document.

Partial alignment in blockwise-visual mode

In blockwise-visual mode (CTRL-V), EasyAlign command aligns only the selected text in the block, instead of the whole lines in the range.

Consider the following case where you want to align text around => operators.

my_hash = { :a => 1,
            :aa => 2,
            :aaa => 3 }

In non-blockwise visual mode (v / V), <Enter>= won't work since the assignment operator in the first line gets in the way. So we instead enter blockwise-visual mode (CTRL-V), and select the text around => operators, then press <Enter>=.

my_hash = { :a   => 1,
            :aa  => 2,
            :aaa => 3 }

However, in this case, we don't really need blockwise visual mode since the same can be easily done using the negative field number: <Enter>-=

Alignment options

Option values can be 1) specified as global variables, 2) set on each alignment rule in g:easy_align_delimiters, 3) or given to every :EasyAlign command.

Command-line options have the highest precedence, and global variables have the lowest precedence.

List of options

Option	Type	Default	Description
`left_margin`	number	0	Number of spaces to attach before delimiter
`left_margin`	string	`''`	String to attach before delimiter
`right_margin`	number	0	Number of spaces to attach after delimiter
`right_margin`	string	`''`	String to attach after delimiter
`stick_to_left`	boolean	0	Whether to position delimiter on the left-side
`ignore_unmatched`	boolean	1	Whether to ignore lines without matching delimiter
`ignores`	list	['String', 'Comment']	Delimiters in these syntax highlight groups are ignored
`indentation`	string	`k`	Indentation method (keep, deep, shallow, none)
`delimiter_align`	string	`r`	Determines how to align delimiters of different lengths

Some of the options can be specified using corresponding global variables.

Option	Global variable
`ignore_unmatched`	`g:easy_align_ignore_unmatched`
`ignores`	`g:easy_align_ignores`
`delimiter_align`	`g:easy_align_delimiter_align`
`indentation`	`g:easy_align_indentation`

Ignoring delimiters in comments or strings

EasyAlign can be configured to ignore delimiters in certain syntax highlight groups, such as code comments or strings. By default, delimiters that are highlighted as code comments or strings are ignored.

" Default:
"   If a delimiter is in a highlight group whose name matches
"   any of the followings, it will be ignored.
let g:easy_align_ignores = ['Comment', 'String']

For example, the following paragraph

{
  # Quantity of apples: 1
  apple: 1,
  # Quantity of bananas: 2
  bananas: 2,
  # Quantity of grape:fruits: 3
  'grape:fruits': 3
}

becomes as follows on <Enter>: (or :EasyAlign:)

{
  # Quantity of apples: 1
  apple:          1,
  # Quantity of bananas: 2
  bananas:        2,
  # Quantity of grape:fruits: 3
  'grape:fruits': 3
}

Naturally, this feature only works when syntax highlighting is enabled.

You can change the default rule by using one of these 3 methods.

Define global g:easy_align_ignores list
Define a custom alignment rule in g:easy_align_delimiters with ignores option
Provide ignores option to :EasyAlign command. e.g. :EasyAlign:{'is':[]}

For example if you set ignores option to be an empty list, you get

{
  # Quantity of apples:  1
  apple:                 1,
  # Quantity of bananas: 2
  bananas:               2,
  # Quantity of grape:   fruits: 3
  'grape:                fruits': 3
}

Satisfied? 😆

Ignoring unmatched lines

Lines without any matching delimiter are ignored as well (except in right-justification mode).

For example, when aligning the following code block around the colons,

{
  apple: proc {
    this_line_does_not_have_a_colon
  },
  bananas: 2,
  grapefruits: 3
}

this is usually what we want.

{
  apple:       proc {
    this_line_does_not_have_a_colon
  },
  bananas:     2,
  grapefruits: 3
}

However, this default behavior is also configurable by using one of these 3 methods.

Set the global g:easy_align_ignore_unmatched variable to 0
Define a custom alignment rule with ignore_unmatched option set to 0
Provide ignore_unmatched option to :EasyAlign command. e.g. :EasyAlign:{'iu':0}

Then we get,

{
  apple:                             proc {
    this_line_does_not_have_a_colon
  },
  bananas:                           2,
  grapefruits:                       3
}

Aligning delimiters of different lengths

Global g:easy_align_delimiter_align option and rule-wise/command-wise delimiter_align option determines how matched delimiters of different lengths are aligned.

apple = 1
banana += apple
cake ||= banana

By default, delimiters are right-aligned as follows.

apple    = 1
banana  += apple
cake   ||= banana

However, with :EasyAlign={'da':l}, delimiters are left-aligned.

apple  =   1
banana +=  apple
cake   ||= banana

And on :EasyAlign={'da':c}, center-aligned.

apple   =  1
banana +=  apple
cake   ||= banana

Adjusting indentation

By default :EasyAlign command keeps the original indentation of the lines. But then again we have indentation option. See the following example.

# Lines with different indentation
  apple = 1
    banana = 2
      cake = 3
        daisy = 4
     eggplant = 5

# Default: _k_eep the original indentation
#   :EasyAlign=
  apple       = 1
    banana    = 2
      cake    = 3
        daisy = 4
     eggplant = 5

# Use the _s_hallowest indentation among the lines
#   :EasyAlign={'idt':s}
  apple    = 1
  banana   = 2
  cake     = 3
  daisy    = 4
  eggplant = 5

# Use the _d_eepest indentation among the lines
#   :EasyAlign={'idt':d}
        apple    = 1
        banana   = 2
        cake     = 3
        daisy    = 4
        eggplant = 5

# Indentation: _n_one
#   :EasyAlign={'idt':n}
apple    = 1
banana   = 2
cake     = 3
daisy    = 4
eggplant = 5

Notice that idt is fuzzy-matched to indentation.

Extending alignment rules

Although the default rules should cover the most of the use cases, you can extend the rules by setting a dictionary named g:easy_align_delimiters.

Example

let g:easy_align_delimiters = {
\ '>': { 'pattern': '>>\|=>\|>' },
\ '/': { 'pattern': '//\+\|/\*\|\*/', 'ignores': ['String'] },
\ '#': { 'pattern': '#\+', 'ignores': ['String'], 'delimiter_align': 'l' },
\ ']': {
\     'pattern':       '[[\]]',
\     'left_margin':   0,
\     'right_margin':  0,
\     'stick_to_left': 0
\   },
\ ')': {
\     'pattern':       '[()]',
\     'left_margin':   0,
\     'right_margin':  0,
\     'stick_to_left': 0
\   },
\ 'd': {
\     'pattern': ' \(\S\+\s*[;=]\)\@=',
\     'left_margin': 0,
\     'right_margin': 0
\   }
\ }

Advanced examples and use cases

See EXAMPLES.md for more examples.

Author

Junegunn Choi

License

MIT