A simple, easy-to-use Vim alignment plugin.

(Too fast? Slower GIF is here)

• Easy to use
  • 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

Maybe or maybe not. See related work section.

Either download zip file and extract in ~/.vim or use your favorite plugin manager.

• Pathogen
  • git clone https://github.com/junegunn/vim-easy-align.git ~/.vim/bundle/vim-easy-align
• Vundle
  1. Add Bundle 'junegunn/vim-easy-align' to .vimrc
  2. Run :BundleInstall
• NeoBundle
  1. Add NeoBundle 'junegunn/vim-easy-align' to .vimrc
  2. Run :NeoBundleInstall
• vim-plug
  1. Add Plug 'junegunn/vim-easy-align' to .vimrc
  2. Run :PlugInstall

Add the following mappings to your .vimrc.

" Start interactive EasyAlign in visual mode
vmap <Enter> <Plug>(EasyAlign)

" Start interactive EasyAlign with a Vim movement
nmap <leader>a <Plug>(EasyAlign)

And with the following lines of text,

apple = red
grass=green
sky=blue

try these commands:

• vip<Enter>=
  • visual-select inner paragraph
  • Start EasyAlign command (<Enter>)
  • Align around =
• <leader>aip=
  • Start EasyAlign command (<Leader>a) for inner paragraph
  • Align around =

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

An alignment rule is a predefined set of options for common alignment tasks, which is identified by a single character, DELIMITER KEY, such as <space>, =, :, ., |, &, and ,.

Think of it as a shortcut. Instead of writing regular expression and setting several options, you can just type in a single character.

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

" For visual mode (e.g. vip<Enter>)
vmap <Enter>   <Plug>(EasyAlign)

" For normal mode, with Vim movement (e.g. <Leader>aip)
nmap <Leader>a <Plug>(EasyAlign)

(Of course you can use any key combination as the trigger.)

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

1. <Enter> key (or <Leader>a followed by a Vim movement) to start interactive EasyAlign command
2. Optional: Enter keys to select alignment mode (left, right, or center)
3. Optional: N-th delimiter (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
   • ...
4. Delimiter key (a single keystroke; <space>, =, :, ., |, &, ,)

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

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

Instead of finishing the command with a predefined delimiter key, you can type in a regular expression after <CTRL-/> or <CTRL-X> key. For example, if you want to align text around all occurrences of numbers:

• <Enter>
• *
• <CTRL-/> (or <CTRL-X> on GVim)
  • [0-9]\+

While in interactive mode, you can set alignment options using special shortcut keys listed below. The meaning of each option will be described in the following sections.

After a successful alignment, you can repeat the same operation using the repeatable, non-interactive command recorded in g:easy_align_last_command.

:<C-R>=g:easy_align_last_command<Enter><Enter>

With normal-mode map to <Plug>(EasyAlign), EasyAlign command becomes a Vim operator that can be used with any Vim movement.

nmap <leader>a <Plug>(EasyAlign)

Now without going into visual mode, you can align the lines in the paragraph with <Leader>aip=, <Leader>aip*|, or <Leader>aip:. And if you have installed vim-repeat by Tim Pope, the exact alignment can be repeated with . key.

If you're performing a complex alignment where multiple options should be carefully adjusted, try "live interactive mode" where you can preview the result of the alignment on-the-fly as you type in.

Live interactive mode can be started with :LiveEasyAlign command which takes the same parameters as :EasyAlign. I suggest you define mappings such as follows in addition to the ones for :EasyAlign command.

vmap <leader><Enter> <Plug>(LiveEasyAlign)
nmap <leader>A       <Plug>(LiveEasyAlign)

In live interactive mode, you have to type in the same delimiter (or CTRL-X on regular expression) again to finalize the alignment. This allows you to preview the result of the alignment and freely change the delimiter using backspace key without leaving the interactive mode.

Instead of going into the interactive mode, you can just type in arguments to :EasyAlign command.

" Using predefined alignment rules
:EasyAlign[!] [N-th] DELIMITER_KEY [OPTIONS]

" Using arbitrary regular expressions
:EasyAlign[!] [N-th] /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 **/[:;]\+/

You can also provide a number of alignment options, which will be discussed in detail later, to EasyAlign command in Vim dictionary format.

• :EasyAlign * /[:;]\+/ { 'stick_to_left': 1, 'left_margin': 0 }

Which means that the matched delimiter should be positioned right next to the preceding token, without margin on the left. So we get:

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

Option names 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}

Nice. But let's make it even shorter. Option values can be written in shorthand notation.

• :EasyAlign*/[:;]\+/s1l0

The following table summarizes the shorthand notation.

For your information, the same thing can be done in the interactive mode as well with the following key combination.

• <Enter>
• *
• <Left>
• <CTRL-/> (or <CTRL-X> on GVim)
  • [:;]\+

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 N-th parameter: <Enter>-=

There are 4 ways to set alignment options (from lowest precedence to highest):

1. Some option values can be set with corresponding global variables
2. Option values can be specified in the definition of each alignment rule
3. Option values can be given as arguments to :EasyAlign command
4. Option values can be set in interactive mode using special shortcut keys

With filter option, you can align lines that only match or do not match a given pattern. There are several ways to set the pattern.

1. Press CTRL-F in interactive mode and input g/pat/ or v/pat/
2. In command-line, it can be written in dictionary format: {'filter': 'g/pat/'}
3. Or in shorthand notation: g/pat/ or v/pat/

(You don't need to escape '/'s in the regular expression)

" Start interactive mode with filter option set to g/hello/
EasyAlign g/hello/

" Start live interactive mode with filter option set to v/goodbye/
LiveEasyAlign v/goodbye/

" Align the lines with 'hi' around the first colons
EasyAlign:g/hi/

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_ignore_groups = ['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 4 methods.

1. Press CTRL-G in interactive mode to switch groups
2. Define global g:easy_align_ignore_groups list
3. Define a custom rule in g:easy_align_delimiters with ignore_groups option
4. Provide ignore_groups option to :EasyAlign command. e.g. :EasyAlign:ig[]

For example if you set ignore_groups 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? 😆

ignore_unmatched option determines how EasyAlign command processes lines that do not have N-th delimiter.

1. In left-alignment mode, they are ignored
2. In right or center-alignment mode, they are not ignored, and the last tokens from those lines are aligned as well as if there is an invisible trailing delimiter at the end of each line
3. If ignore_unmatched is 1, they are ignored regardless of the alignment mode
4. If ignore_unmatched is 0, they are not ignored regardless of the mode

Let's take an example. When we align the following code block around the (1st) 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, we can override this default behavior by setting ignore_unmatched option to zero using one of the following methods.

1. Press CTRL-U in interactive mode to toggle ignore_unmatched option
2. Set the global g:easy_align_ignore_unmatched variable to 0
3. Define a custom alignment rule with ignore_unmatched option set to 0
4. Provide ignore_unmatched option to :EasyAlign command. e.g. :EasyAlign:iu0

Then we get,

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

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=dl, delimiters are left-aligned.

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

And on :EasyAlign=dc, center-aligned.

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

In interactive mode, you can change the option value with CTRL-D key.

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=is
  apple    = 1
  banana   = 2
  cake     = 3
  daisy    = 4
  eggplant = 5

# Use the _d_eepest indentation among the lines
#   :EasyAlign=id
        apple    = 1
        banana   = 2
        cake     = 3
        daisy    = 4
        eggplant = 5

# Indentation: _n_one
#   :EasyAlign=in
apple    = 1
banana   = 2
cake     = 3
daisy    = 4
eggplant = 5

Notice that idt is fuzzy-matched to indentation.

In interactive mode, you can change the option value with CTRL-I key.

As stated above, "N-th" parameter is used to target specific occurrences of the delimiter when it appears multiple times in each line.

To recap:

" Left-alignment around the FIRST occurrences of delimiters
:EasyAlign =

" Left-alignment around the SECOND occurrences of delimiters
:EasyAlign 2=

" Left-alignment around the LAST occurrences of delimiters
:EasyAlign -=

" Left-alignment around ALL occurrences of delimiters
:EasyAlign *=

" Left-right ALTERNATING alignment around all occurrences of delimiters
:EasyAlign **=

" Right-left ALTERNATING alignment around all occurrences of delimiters
:EasyAlign! **=

In addition to these, you can fine-tune alignments over multiple occurrences of the delimiters with 'mode_sequence' option. (The option can also be set in interactive mode with the special key CTRL-O)

" Left alignment over the first two occurrences of delimiters
:EasyAlign = { 'mode_sequence': 'll' }

" Right, left, center alignment over the 1st to 3rd occurrences of delimiters
:EasyAlign = { 'm': 'rlc' }

" Using shorthand notation
:EasyAlign = mrlc

" Right, left, center alignment over the 2nd to 4th occurrences of delimiters
:EasyAlign 2=mrlc

" (*) Repeating alignments (default: l, r, or c)
"   Right, left, center, center, center, center, ...
:EasyAlign *=mrlc

" (**) Alternating alignments (default: lr or rl)
"   Right, left, center, right, left, center, ...
:EasyAlign **=mrlc

" Right, left, center, center, center, ... repeating alignment
" over the 3rd to the last occurrences of delimiters
:EasyAlign 3=mrlc*

" Right, left, center, right, left, center, ... alternating alignment
" over the 3rd to the last occurrences of delimiters
:EasyAlign 3=mrlc**

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.

You may refer to the definitions of the default alignment rules here.

let g:easy_align_delimiters = {
\ '>': { 'pattern': '>>\|=>\|>' },
\ '/': { 'pattern': '//\+\|/\*\|\*/', 'ignore_groups': ['String'] },
\ '#': { 'pattern': '#\+', 'ignore_groups': ['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
\   }
\ }

It is reported that &foldmethod value of expr or syntax can significantly slow down the alignment when editing a large, complex file with many folds. To alleviate this issue, EasyAlign provides an option to temporarily set &foldmethod to manual during the alignment task. In order to enable this feature, set g:easy_align_bypass_fold switch to 1.

let g:easy_align_bypass_fold = 1

In interactive mode, you can choose the alignment mode you want by pressing enter keys. The non-bang command, :EasyAlign starts in left-alignment mode and changes to right and center mode as you press enter keys, while the bang version first starts in right-alignment mode.

• :EasyAlign
  • Left, Right, Center
• :EasyAlign!
  • Right, Left, Center

If you do not prefer this default mode transition, you can define your own settings as follows.

let g:easy_align_interactive_modes = ['l', 'r']
let g:easy_align_bang_interactive_modes = ['c', 'r']

See EXAMPLES.md for more examples.

There are two well-known plugins with the same goal as that of vim-easy-align.

• DrChip's Alignment Tool for Vim (herein will be referred to as "Align")
• Tabular

Both are great plugins with very large user bases. I actually had been a Tabular user for a couple of years before I finally made up my mind to roll out my own.

So why would someone choose vim-easy-align over those two?

Feature-by-feature comparison I believe is not quite useful, since a typical user will end up using only a small subset of the features. So I will mention just a few core benefits of vim-easy-align.

As the name implies, vim-easy-align is easier to use. Its interactive mode allows you to achieve what you want with just a few keystrokes. The key sequence is mnemonic, so it's easy to remember and execute. It even feels like a native Vim command!

• Right-align: <Enter><Enter>
• around the second occurrences: 2
• of whitespaces: <space>

For the simplest cases, Tabular and Align are also easy to use. But sooner or later, you will find yourself scratching your head, trying to come up with some complex regular expressions.

"How am I going to align the third to the last word in each line to the right without affecting the ones before it?"

vim-easy-align doesn't clutter your workspace with mappings and global variables. All you would need is a single mapping to the interactive EasyAlign command, and even that is totally up to you.

vim-easy-align by default performs syntax-aware alignment, which is invaluable when editing codes.

Try to come up with a regular expression to correctly format the following code snippet. With vim-easy-align under default configuration and a mapping, it can be done with just two keystrokes: <Enter>:

var jdbc = {
  // JDBC driver for MySQL database:
  driver: "com.mysql.jdbc.Driver",
  /* JDBC URL for the connection (jdbc:mysql://HOSTNAME/DATABASE) */
  url: 'jdbc:mysql://localhost/test',
  database: "test",
  "user:pass":"r00t:pa55"
};

(To be fair, Align also can be configured to consider syntax highlighting with g:AlignSkip function reference which should point to a custom function that looks up the syntax group of a character on a certain position)

Virtually every aspect of vim-easy-align is being tested with a comprehensive set of test cases using Vader.vim.

Maybe, but I can't really say. I have no ambition to make vim-easy-align an absolute superior to the others. For some cases, vim-easy-align works better than the others, but for some other cases, Tabular or Align.vim might be a better choice.

So try it yourself and see if it works for you!

Junegunn Choi

MIT