Vim syntax highlighting 'else:' for Python

Question

I'm getting annoyed with the default python syntax highlighting in Vim.

It does not highlight the else: statement correctly. Vim only highlights the else statement if I have some white space between the else and the colon : , so else : works, but else: does not.

It must be easy to fix.

I'm using Vim 7.2

Answer 1

I had below statement in my vimrc file. This made else: be tokenized as one word. After removing that else: syntax highlighting works just fine.

set iskeyword+=:

Answer 2

It should work by default.

Look for a file that is something like this:

/usr/share/vim/vim72/syntax/python.vim

There should be a line there that looks like this:

syn keyword pythonConditional   if elif else

If not, investigate further. Does elif work?

Answer 3

Note that the file in

/usr/share/vim/vim72/syntax/python.vim

is not up to date for some reason.

Get the most recent version of the syntax highlight file from http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=790

Answer 4

This periodically pops up, and I've taken to putting this in my vimrc:

" No seriously, else: is the same as else
autocmd BufEnter,BufRead,BufNewFile *.py    set iskeyword-=:

Answer 5

Enable the filetype stuff so things are setup automatically. I've python auto indenting and syntax highlighting setup for vim here: http://www.pixelbeat.org/settings/.vimrc

Answer 6

In my ~/.vim/syntax/python.vim file, I have a line

syn keyword pythonConditional   else:

which solves this problem.