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How do you undo setting an option in vim?

I often call

:set spell

only to immediately call

:set nospell

once I've corrected the word I was unsure of.

I can make this faster by mapping both commands, but I'm looking for a more general way to speed this up. Is it possible to undo the last option :set?

Solution

  • Strictly speaking, no, you cannot undo setting a setting in Vim.

    But boolean options like 'spell' can be toggled with either one of

    :set spell!
:set invspell

    In interactive use there is generally no need to specifically :set spell or :set nospell. Toggling is more convenient and can be immediately "undone" with the @: command.

    Non-boolean options can be undone by resetting them to their factory values – say, if you have messed up some setting and wish to revert. Example:

    :set formatoptions&

    A & appended to the option name resets it to its default value.

    The solution explained in this answer is also documented in vim-help, in case you forget and need to find it again in the future:

    :help set-default