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Windows gvim (74) syntax file, syntax not matching what it sould

I am trying to create a vim syntax file (actually for gvim, but they should be very similar), but one of my matching groups does not match what it should.

I need to match the literal "nop" or "NOP" and grey it out. how I do this is:

syn match nopkw 'nop|NOP'

according to my own knowledge, and (more importantly) regex101.com, this should match literal "nop" or "NOP". Later in my file I use

highlight nopkw guifg=#d3d3d3

If I am correct, this should make all "nop"'s light grey. But it does not. I have other matches in my file that work correctly, such as for numbers:

syn match num '\d+'
highlight num guifg=#ff0000

This works fine, as expected. Why does the "nop" regex not work, and can you find me one that does?

thank you.

Solution

  • Thankfully, the answer is really simple. You need to escape the bar for it work as an 'or'. Try this:

    syn match nopkw 'nop\|NOP'

    Or, another option would be to use the magic option. This would look like this:

    syn match nopkw '\vnop|NOP'