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Should you define user-writable values as variables or options in Vim plugins?

Should values that a Vim plugin allows users to set be defined as options or variables? I'm not quite sure what the difference is, or what the impact of using one over the other is.

Solution

  • If by "options" you mean things like autoindent or colorcolumn, you can set or unset them and retrieve their value… but you can't create "options".

    What you can use, though, are "internal variables" on which you can read all about in :help internal-variables.

    Use global variables (g:var) for the user-defined "options" of your plugin and script-local variables (s:var) or function-local variables (l:var or simply var inside a function) in your script.

    if !exists('g:myplugin_option')
    let g:myplugin_option = 1
endif