Fast, 'tree-sitter'-like Vim Syntax Highlighting for Go

vim-go-syntax provides fast and feature-rich Vim syntax highlighting for Go, with results comparable to tree-sitter in Neovim.

Feedback is welcome! This syntax is still fairly new and I'd like feedback or issues to improve it. Please see if there's already an issue open or create a new one.

Syntax highlighting can make reading code easier by using colour to convey additional information. Existing Vim syntax definitions aren't able to to correctly highlight key parts of the syntax, which motivated me to write vim-go-syntax from the ground up using the Go language specification. Not only does it fix many of the shortfalls of existing syntax definitions, it's more than 2x faster even with all features enabled!

Comparison of vim-go (left) with vim-go-syntax (right) using my colour scheme; see :help group-name to see how your colour scheme highlights Vim's default syntax groups. Most syntax highlighting features can be disabled if you'd prefer - see Configuration.

Key Features

Key features compared to vim-go and the built-in Vim syntax:

• Correctly display user-defined types and packages
  • E.g in structs, struct literals, parameters, slices, maps, var/const declarations, type parameters, type assertions, type switches, make(), new(), etc.
• Correctly highlights imported package names
• Godoc highlighting in vim-go
• More customisable Configuration
• Vastly more fine-grained highlighting
• Parentheses, Braces, and Brackets highlighted and individually configurable
  • E.g. struct and function braces can be different
• Correctly highlight functions, including:
  • User-defined types and packages in receiver, parameters, and return types
  • Multiline parameters/return values, including successive parameters of the same type
  • Identifier/type differentiation in function types (e.g. func (int, MyType) vs func (a, b MyType)) and return types
• Correctly handle generics:
  • Type parameters and their constraints (including user-defined types) are highlighted correctly
  • User-defined types in type arguments are highlighted correctly
  • Type arguments don't break function call or struct value highlighting
• Multiline field chains, even with comments
• Correct use of Vim's syntax groups
  • More consistent with syntax definitions of other languages. See :help group-name to see your current colour scheme (or :help :hi to create your own).
• Many other small improvements, including labels, embedded types, invalid rune error highlighting, and better string behaviour.

Configuration

Listed in the table below are various options that can be used to customise highlighting. These can be set at any time before the syntax is loaded, usually your .vimrc is best.

Each option can be:

• A 1 or a 0 to enable/disable the highlighting. For example:

let g:go_highlight_parens = 0
let g:go_highlight_fields = 1

• A syntax group name; see ':help group-name' to see what default groups are available and how your colour scheme styles them. For example, to make function calls look like types:

let g:go_highlight_function_calls = 'Type'

• A highlight description; see ':help hi' for syntax and options. For example, to make type parameters blue and italic:

let g:go_highlight_type_parameters = 'ctermfg=4 cterm=italic'

If you want even more customisation, you can override the default highlighting by adding custom highlighting rules to ~/.vim/after/syntax/go.vim (you'll need to create this file first). The previous configuration examples could also be achieved like this:

" ~/.vim/after/syntax/go.vim

hi clear goParens

hi link goField Identifier

hi link goFuncCall Type

hi goTypeParam ctermfg=4 cterm=italic

See syntax/go.vim for the names of all syntax and highlight groups.

Summary of options (see below table for descriptions):

Configuration Option	Default	Default Group
g:go_highlight_braces	Enabled	Delimiter
g:go_highlight_brackets	Enabled	Delimiter
g:go_highlight_builtins	Enabled	Special
g:go_highlight_comma	Disabled	Delimiter
g:go_highlight_dot	Enabled	Operator
g:go_highlight_fields	Disabled	Identifier
g:go_highlight_format_strings	Enabled	SpecialChar
g:go_highlight_format_string_errors	Disabled	Error
g:go_highlight_functions	Enabled	Function
g:go_highlight_function_parens	Enabled	Delimiter
g:go_highlight_function_braces	Enabled	Delimiter
g:go_highlight_function_calls	Enabled	Function
g:go_highlight_function_call_parens	Enabled	Delimiter
g:go_highlight_generate_tags	Enabled	PreProc
g:go_highlight_rune_literal_error	Enabled	Error
g:go_highlight_labels	Enabled	Label
g:go_highlight_map_brackets	Enabled	Delimiter
g:go_highlight_operators	Enabled	Operator
g:go_highlight_function_parameters	Enabled	Identifier
g:go_highlight_parens	Enabled	Delimiter
g:go_highlight_semicolon	Disabled	Delimiter
g:go_highlight_short_variable_declarations	Enabled	Identifier
g:go_highlight_slice_brackets	Enabled	Delimiter
g:go_highlight_format_strings	Enabled	SpecialChar
g:go_highlight_struct_type_fields	Disabled	Identifier
g:go_highlight_struct_tags	Enabled	PreProc
g:go_highlight_struct_fields	Disabled	Identifier
g:go_highlight_types	Enabled	Type
g:go_highlight_type_parameters	Enabled	Identifier
g:go_highlight_variable_assignments	Disabled	Special
g:go_highlight_variable_declarations	Enabled	Identifier

• g:go_highlight_braces
  • All braces ({}). More specific brace options (e.g. g:go_highlight_function_braces) will take precedence over this option.
• g:go_highlight_brackets
  • All brackets ([]). More specific bracket options (e.g. g:go_highlight_map_brackets) will take precedence over this option.
• g:go_highlight_builtins
  • Highlight built-in functions differently from other functions.
• g:go_highlight_comma
  • Commas.
• g:go_highlight_dot
  • Dot operators, e.g. the dot in foo.bar()
• g:go_highlight_fields
  • Fields in expressions, e.g. bar in foo.bar = 123
• g:go_highlight_format_strings
  • Format strings, e.g. "Hello, %s".
• g:go_highlight_format_string_errors
  • Invalid format strings. Currently only zero index in format strings, e.g. fmt.Sprintf("%[0]d", 123) which should be fmt.Sprintf("%[1]d", 123).
• g:go_highlight_functions
  • Function declaration names, e.g. foo in func foo() { }. Also applies to method names.
• g:go_highlight_function_parens
  • Parentheses around parameter list and receiver type.
• g:go_highlight_function_braces
  • The braces of the function block.
• g:go_highlight_function_calls
  • Function calls. Turning this off does not affect other syntax elements (e.g. generics, function call parentheses).
• g:go_highlight_function_call_parens
  • The parentheses of a function call.
• g:go_highlight_generate_tags
  • Generate comments, e.g. //go:generate .... Turning this off makes them look like regular comments.
• g:go_highlight_rune_literal_error
  • Invalid rune literals.
• g:go_highlight_labels
  • User-defined labels.
• g:go_highlight_map_brackets
  • The brackets in map types, e.g. map[string]int.
• g:go_highlight_operators
  • Operators including assignment, e.g. +, -, &&, ||, =, :=, etc.
• g:go_highlight_function_parameters
  • Parameter names, e.g. bar in func foo(bar int)
• g:go_highlight_parens
  • All parentheses. More specific parenthesis options (e.g. g:go_highlight_function_parens) will take precedence.
• g:go_highlight_semicolon
  • Semicolons.
• g:go_highlight_short_variable_declarations
  • Highlight the names of new variables defined by the declaration syntax, e.g. a and b in a, b := foo().
• g:go_highlight_slice_brackets
  • The brackets in slice types, e.g. []string.
• g:go_highlight_format_strings
  • Format placeholders in in format strings, e.g. %s in fmt.Printf("%s", foo)
• g:go_highlight_struct_type_fields
  • Field names in struct types, e.g. Bar in type Foo struct { Bar int }
• g:go_highlight_struct_tags
  • Struct tags, the backtick-delimited strings in structs, e.g. `json:bar` in struct { Bar int `json:"bar"` }.
• g:go_highlight_struct_fields
  • Field names in struct literals, e.g. Bar in f := Foo{ Bar: 123 }.
• g:go_highlight_types
  • Type declaration names, e.g. Foo in type Foo struct { Bar int }. Even with this option off, types parameters etc. will still be highlighted as types.
• g:go_highlight_type_parameters
  • Type parameter names in type parameter lists, e.g. the T in the brackets of type Foo[T] { Bar T }; the T in the struct will be highlighted as a type.
• g:go_highlight_variable_assignments
  • Variable names in assignments, e.g. a and b in a, b = foo().
• g:go_highlight_variable_declarations
  • Names in var or const assignments, e.g. a in var a []string. Also applies to short variable declarations (i.e. :=) unless g:go_highlight_short_variable_declarations is set.

Other configuration options:

• g:go_fold_decl_blocks (default: 1)
  • Fold var and const declaration blocks.
• g:go_fold_function_blocks (default: 1)
  • Fold function blocks.
• g:go_fold_struct_blocks (default: 1)
  • Fold struct blocks.
• g:go_fold_interface_blocks (default: 1)
  • Fold interface blocks.
• g:go_syntax_fold (default: 1)
  • Global fold setting. If set to 0, all folding is disabled. If set to 1, each respective g:go_fold_* option is used.

Caveats

• Type arguments to types and functions are limited to at most three nested generic types, e.g. val := Type1[Type2[Type3[Foo]]]{ ... }. The number of arguments at each level is unlimited, e.g. Type1[Type2[A, B, C, ...]]
• The type parameters of a generic type embedded within a struct (that is, the A,B,C in struct { Foo[A,B,C] }) can't be spread across multiple lines, though this is very uncommon in practical use.
• Structs literals (MyStruct{...}) can't have a space between the name and the braces, despite the fact that Go permits this.
• Type conversion (MyType(someVal)) is highlighted like a function call
• A slice or map literal whose type is a function with multiple return values and the type is not in parentheses (e.g. []func(a, b int) (c, d Foo){ f1, f2, f3 }) is technically valid Go code, but the Foo type will not be highlighted correctly.
  • This can easily be avoided by wrapping the type in parentheses to make it clear (e.g. [](func(a, b int) (c, d Foo)){ f1, f2, f3 }, which is highlighted correctly), or preferably use a named type to make the code easier to read (e.g. type MyFunc func(a, b int) (c, d Foo), and then use []MyFunc{ f1, f2, f3 }, all of which will be highlighted correctly).
• iota is matched in any expression. While not ideal, this currently avoids complex restructuring of the syntax code or performance degradation. It may be worth revisiting this at some point.

What's Next

• Possibly integrate with vim-go to get actual type information to highlight things like type conversion correctly