setting default syntax for sublime doesn't work

Question

Whenever I open a .m file the default syntax is objective-c but I want to change that to matlab. So when I open a .m file I go to

view -> syntax -> open all with current extension as..

and choose matlab. After that if I open another .m file the default syntax is matlab. But if I close sublime and open it again the default syntax is back to objective-c.

I added objective-c to ignore syntax list but now it opens .m files as plain text. Is there another way to set default syntax for a file extension?

Answer 1

I'm not sure why Sublime is doing this, but there's a way around it. Since you're using ST2, it's quite easy. Select Preferences -> Browse Packages... to open your Packages folder, and open the Objective-C subfolder. Open Objective-C.tmLanguage in Sublime as an XML file, and comment out (or remove entirely) Line 7:

<string>m</string>

Save the file and close it. Next, open Objective-C++.tmLanguage and do the same thing to Line 8:

<string>M</string>

Save and close that file as well. Finally, just to make sure your Open all with current extension as... command worked, go to Packages/User and check for the existence of a file called MATLAB.sublime-settings. Open it as a JSON file, and double-check that its contents are as follows:

{
    "extensions":
    [
        "m"
    ]
}

If for some reason the file doesn't exist, create it with the above contents and save it. You should now be able to open any .m file and have the syntax automatically set to MATLAB.

---

Note for Sublime Text 3 users:

ST3 does not store its default packages in Packages anymore, instead they're in the Installed Packages folder (its location varies by OS and type of install) as zipped .sublime-package files. To access the contents, install @skuroda's PackageResourceViewer plugin to seamlessly access the contents of these files. Once installed, open the Command Palette (CtrlShiftP on Windows/Linux, ⌘ShiftP on OS X) and type prv to bring up the PackageResourceViewer options. Select Extract Package, scroll down to Objective-C, and hit Enter. You can now follow the directions above for opening the Packages/Objective-C folder and editing the .tmLanguage files. The Packages/User directory is a regular directory, so you don't need to extract it to verify the contents of MATLAB.sublime-settings.

Answer 2

In sublime3, view -> syntax -> open all with current extension as.. works if you close then open sublime.

Answer 3

I think why this is happening, at least in Sublime 3 (v3.2.1). After using PackageResourceViewer: Extract Package to extract Matlab package, I found that in Matlab.sublime-syntax in Line 6:

  - matlab

As .matlab is not an extension for matlab functions and scripts, after I changed it to - m, Sublime shows .m files in MATLAB syntax.