Loading google.vim indent file in Vim

Question

I am attempting to use the google.vim (and on vim.org) indent style for my c++ project, but I can't seem to load it. I installed google.vim using vundle and opened up a cpp file and noticed that my tabstops, shiftwidths, etc did not change. If you set global ts and sw parameters, are they not overwritten? How do you force a certain indention when editing a file in vim? I want everything in my vimrc file to be overwritten by the google.vim file when I edit a cpp file.

Running the :filetype command in vim reveals this information:

      detection:ON plugin:ON indent:ON

The bottom line is that I don't understand how to tell vim to use my google.vim file located under ~/.vim/vundle/google.vim/indent/google.vim. From what I have read, vim detects that filetype of your current file and uses the appropriate .vim file for syntax and indentation. So would I then have to rename my google.vim file to something like cpp.vim?

In most cases I like to use a tabstop of 3 and a shiftwidth of 3, so I set these in my .vimrc file. However, when I edit a cpp file, I want all my settings to be changed from what I have set globally to what the google.vim file sets.

Answer 1

You must rename the file from google.vim to cpp.vim, as indicated in the description of the plugin on vim.org.

General explanation:

Adding filetype plugin indent on to your ~/.vimrc allows Vim to detect the filetype of the files you edit (usually based on the file extention) and source filetype-specific plugins and indent scripts.

The idea is simple: you edit a file with {{LANGUAGE}} filetype and Vim tries to source any ftplugin/{{LANGUAGE}}.vim and indent/{{LANGUAGE}}.vim it finds in your runtimepath.

Because the filetype of your file is cpp, Vim will blissfully ignore your google.vim indent script so… you must rename it to cpp.vim for it to work.

Or you could rename all your C++ files foobar.google and teach Vim to recognize *.google files but, well… it doesn't sound right ;-)