Why is c.vim overriding .vimrc for HTML?

Question

My ~/.vimrc contains the following (default in Ubuntu 14.04, just added the last line):

set smartindent
set tabstop=4
set shiftwidth=4

filetype plugin indent on

In ~/.vim/after/ftplugin/c.vim :

set tabstop=8 softtabstop=8 shiftwidth=8 noexpandtab

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I was expecting for only .c and .h files to use 8-column tabs. However, other files are also being afected such as .html files.

How can I make c.vim affect only C-related files?

Answer 1

Change this:

set tabstop=8 softtabstop=8 shiftwidth=8 noexpandtab

to this:

setlocal tabstop=8 softtabstop=8 shiftwidth=8 noexpandtab