vim-lsp-cxx-highlight

vim-lsp-cxx-highlight is a vim plugin that provides C/C++/Cuda/ObjC semantic highlighting using the language server protocol.

Archive Notice

This project has been archived as it is no longer needed to achieve highlighting as most LSP servers and clients now support Semantic Tokens.

The original purpose of this project was to bring good semantic highlighting to vim/nvim for C++ well before it was standardized by parsing non-standard extensions from cquery and ccls.

It makes more sense for a LSP client (builtin or a separate plugin) to implement the highlighting as it is standardized now.

Introduction

How does this plugin differentiate itself from color_coded and chromatica?

vim-lsp-cxx-highlight does no compilation/analysis of source files. It receives all of its semantic highlighting data over the language server protocol. The main advantage of this plugin is that it is written entirely in vimscript.

The idea for this came from vscode-cquery and seeing how it uses cquery to provide semantic highlighting.

Left: No Plugin, Right: vim-lsp-cxx-highlight + ccls

Requirements

The plugin requires vim or neovim. For vim +timers and +byte_offset are recommended but not required.

Additionally, a compatible language server and language server client is required.

The following language servers and protocol extensions are supported:

cquery
- $cquery/publishSemanticHighlighting - semantic highlighting
- $cquery/setInactiveRegions - preprocessor skipped regions
ccls
- $ccls/publishSemanticHighlight - semantic highlighting
- $ccls/publishSkippedRegions - preprocessor skipped regions
clangd
- Requires coc.nvim and coc-clangd
- Using the proposed Semantic Highlighting Protocol
- IMPORTANT: coc-clangd supports 2 implementaions: "semantic highlighting" (old, non-standard) and "semantic tokens" (new, LSP standard). The latest versions of clangd (12+) require disabling coc's semantic tokens to work; see below.

The following language server clients are supported:

vim-lsp
LanguageClient-neovim
coc.nvim
nvim-lsp

Install

Using vim-plug (Or use the plugin manager of your choice)

Plug 'prabirshrestha/vim-lsp' " vim-lsp
" or
Plug 'autozimu/LanguageClient-neovim' " LanguageClient-neovim
" or
Plug 'neoclide/coc.nvim' " coc.nvim
" or
Plug 'neovim/nvim-lsp' " nvim-lsp

Plug 'jackguo380/vim-lsp-cxx-highlight'

Using vim8's native package manager (Run this command in a terminal)

git clone https://github.com/jackguo380/vim-lsp-cxx-highlight.git ~/.vim/pack/vendor/start/vim-lsp-cxx-highlight

For cquery the following initializationOptions are needed:

{
    "highlight": { "enabled" : true },
    "emitInactiveRegions" : true
}

For ccls the following initializationOptions are needed:

{
    "highlight": { "lsRanges" : true }
}

For clangd coc-settings.json must have:

{
    "clangd.semanticHighlighting": true,
    "coc.preferences.semanticTokensHighlights": false
}

For a sample vim-lsp configuration see this

For a sample LanguageClient-neovim configuration see this

For a sample coc.nvim coc-settings.json see this

For a sample nvim-lsp configuration see this

Configuration

The plugin should work without any additional configuration. But if you don't like the default settings see :help vim-lsp-cxx-highlight

Vim Text Properties

vim-lsp-cxx-highlight now has support for Vim 8.1's text properties (See :help textprop).

What using text-properties improves:

Highlighting moves around with the text, inserting new lines/words no longer messes things up
Deleting lines removes highlighting attached to text
Some performance improvements? (Unverified)

Support for this feature has been tested on Vim version 8.1.1722, older versions may have problems. It is recommended to upgrade to this version or newer.

To enable: