YouCompleteMe: a code-completion engine for Vim
Warning: Support for Python 2 has been dropped
In early 2020, YCM dropped support for Python 2. But we will maintain critical fixes on a branch named legacy-py2 for a period of 1 year.
How?
In order to use the legacy Python 2 support, see this post
Why?
Over the past decade, YouCompleteMe has had an at times fractious, but ultimately very successful relationship with Python 2. However, more recently it has been carrying on a simultaneous relationship with Python 3. Indeed all of YCM and ycmd code is Python 3 code, with a lot of gubbins to make it work also on Python 2. This makes the code more complex, requires double testing of everything, and restricts the developers from using certain new langauge features, ultimately restricting the features we can deliver to users.
On 1st January 2020, Python 2 will be officially end of life. And therefore, so will its relationship with YouCompleteMe and ycmd.
Help, Advice, Support
Looking for help, advice or support? Having problems getting YCM to work?
First carefully read the installation instructions for your OS.
We recommend you use the supplied install.py
.
Next check the User Guide section on the semantic completer that you are using. For C/C++/Objective-C/Objective-C++/CUDA, you must read this section.
Finally, check the FAQ.
If, after reading the installation and user guides, and checking the FAQ, you're still having trouble, check the contacts section below for how to get in touch.
Please do NOT go to #vim on freenode for support. Please contact the YouCompleteMe maintainers directly using the contact details below.
Contents
- Intro
- Installation
- Quick Feature Summary
- User Guide
- General Usage
- Client-Server Architecture
- Completion String Ranking
- General Semantic Completion
- C-family Semantic Completion
- Java Semantic Completion
- Python Semantic Completion
- Rust Semantic Completion
- Go Semantic Completion
- JavaScript and TypeScript Semantic Completion
- Semantic Completion for Other Languages
- LSP Configuration
- Writing New Semantic Completers
- Diagnostic Display
- Commands
- Functions
- Autocommands
- Options
- FAQ
- Contributor Code of Conduct
- Contact
- License
Intro
YouCompleteMe is a fast, as-you-type, fuzzy-search code completion engine for Vim. It has several completion engines:
- an identifier-based engine that works with every programming language,
- a powerful clangd-based engine that provides native semantic code completion for C/C++/Objective-C/Objective-C++/CUDA (from now on referred to as "the C-family languages"),
- a Jedi-based completion engine for Python 2 and 3,
- an OmniSharp-Roslyn-based completion engine for C#,
- a Gopls-based completion engine for Go,
- a TSServer-based completion engine for JavaScript and TypeScript,
- a rls-based completion engine for Rust,
- a jdt.ls-based completion engine for Java.
- a generic Language Server Protocol implementation for any language
- and an omnifunc-based completer that uses data from Vim's omnicomplete system to provide semantic completions for many other languages (Ruby, PHP etc.).
Here's an explanation of what happens in the short GIF demo above.
First, realize that no keyboard shortcuts had to be pressed to get the list of completion candidates at any point in the demo. The user just types and the suggestions pop up by themselves. If the user doesn't find the completion suggestions relevant and/or just wants to type, they can do so; the completion engine will not interfere.
When the user sees a useful completion string being offered, they press the TAB key to accept it. This inserts the completion string. Repeated presses of the TAB key cycle through the offered completions.
If the offered completions are not relevant enough, the user can continue typing to further filter out unwanted completions.
A critical thing to notice is that the completion filtering is NOT based on
the input being a string prefix of the completion (but that works too). The
input needs to be a subsequence match of a completion. This is a fancy way
of saying that any input characters need to be present in a completion string in
the order in which they appear in the input. So abc
is a subsequence of
xaybgc
, but not of xbyxaxxc
. After the filter, a complicated sorting system
ranks the completion strings so that the most relevant ones rise to the top of
the menu (so you usually need to press TAB just once).
All of the above works with any programming language because of the identifier-based completion engine. It collects all of the identifiers in the current file and other files you visit (and your tags files) and searches them when you type (identifiers are put into per-filetype groups).
The demo also shows the semantic engine in use. When the user presses .
, ->
or ::
while typing in insert mode (for C++; different triggers are used for
other languages), the semantic engine is triggered (it can also be triggered
with a keyboard shortcut; see the rest of the docs).
The last thing that you can see in the demo is YCM's diagnostic display features (the little red X that shows up in the left gutter; inspired by Syntastic) if you are editing a C-family file. As the completer engine compiles your file and detects warnings or errors, they will be presented in various ways. You don't need to save your file or press any keyboard shortcut to trigger this, it "just happens" in the background.
In essence, YCM obsoletes the following Vim plugins because it has all of their features plus extra:
- clang_complete
- AutoComplPop
- Supertab
- neocomplcache
And that's not all...
YCM also provides semantic IDE-like features in a number of languages, including:
- displaying signature help (argument hints) when entering the arguments to a function call
- finding declarations, definitions, usages, etc. of identifiers,
- displaying type information for classes, variables, functions etc.,
- displaying documentation for methods, members, etc. in the preview window,
- fixing common coding errors, like missing semi-colons, typos, etc.,
- semantic renaming of variables across files,
- formatting code,
- removing unused imports, sorting imports, etc.
For example, here's a demo of signature help:
Features vary by file type, so make sure to check out the file type feature summary and the full list of completer subcommands to find out what's available for your favourite languages.
You'll also find that YCM has filepath completers (try typing ./
in a file)
and a completer that integrates with UltiSnips.
Installation
macOS
Quick start, installing all completers
-
Install cmake, macvim and python; Note that the system vim is not supported.
brew install cmake macvim python
-
Install mono, go, node and npm
brew install mono go nodejs
-
Compile YCM
cd ~/.vim/bundle/YouCompleteMe python3 install.py --all
Explanation for the quick start
These instructions (using install.py
) are the quickest way to install
YouCompleteMe, however they may not work for everyone. If the following
instructions don't work for you, check out the full installation
guide.
MacVim is required. YCM won't work with the pre-installed Vim from Apple as its Python support is broken. If you don't already use MacVim, install it with Homebrew. Install CMake as well:
brew install cmake macvim
Install YouCompleteMe with Vundle.
Remember: YCM is a plugin with a compiled component. If you update YCM
using Vundle and the ycm_core
library APIs have changed (happens
rarely), YCM will notify you to recompile it. You should then rerun the install
process.
NOTE: If you want C-family completion, you MUST have the latest Xcode
installed along with the latest Command Line Tools (they are installed
automatically when you run clang
for the first time, or manually by running
xcode-select --install
)
Compiling YCM with semantic support for C-family languages through clangd:
cd ~/.vim/bundle/YouCompleteMe
./install.py --clangd-completer
Compiling YCM without semantic support for C-family languages:
cd ~/.vim/bundle/YouCompleteMe
./install.py
The following additional language support options are available:
- C# support: install Mono with Homebrew or by downloading the Mono
macOS package and add
--cs-completer
when callinginstall.py
. - Go support: install Go and add
--go-completer
when callinginstall.py
. - JavaScript and TypeScript support: install Node.js and npm and
add
--ts-completer
when callinginstall.py
. - Rust support: add
--rust-completer
when callinginstall.py
. - Java support: install JDK8 (version 8 required) and add
--java-completer
when callinginstall.py
.
To simply compile with everything enabled, there's a --all
flag. You need to
specify it manually by adding --clangd-completer
. So, to install with all
language features, ensure xbuild
, go
, node
and npm
tools
are installed and in your PATH
, then simply run:
cd ~/.vim/bundle/YouCompleteMe
./install.py --all
That's it. You're done. Refer to the User Guide section on how to use YCM. Don't forget that if you want the C-family semantic completion engine to work, you will need to provide the compilation flags for your project to YCM. It's all in the User Guide.
YCM comes with sane defaults for its options, but you still may want to take a look at what's available for configuration. There are a few interesting options that are conservatively turned off by default that you may want to turn on.
Linux 64-bit
Quick start, installing all completers
-
Install cmake, vim and python
apt install build-essential cmake vim python3-dev
-
Install mono-complete, go, node and npm
-
Compile YCM
cd ~/.vim/bundle/YouCompleteMe python3 install.py --all
Explanation for the quick start
These instructions (using install.py
) are the quickest way to install
YouCompleteMe, however they may not work for everyone. If the following
instructions don't work for you, check out the full installation
guide.
Make sure you have Vim 7.4.1578 with Python 3 support. The Vim
package on Fedora 27 and later and the pre-installed Vim on Ubuntu 16.04 and
later are recent enough. You can see the version of Vim installed by running
vim --version
. If the version is too old, you may need to compile Vim from
source (don't worry, it's easy).
NOTE: For all features, such as signature help, use Vim 8.1.1875 or later.
Install YouCompleteMe with Vundle.
Remember: YCM is a plugin with a compiled component. If you update YCM
using Vundle and the ycm_core
library APIs have changed (happens rarely), YCM
will notify you to recompile it. You should then rerun the install process.
Install development tools, CMake, and Python headers:
-
Fedora 27 and later:
sudo dnf install cmake gcc-c++ make python3-devel
-
Ubuntu 14.04:
sudo apt install build-essential cmake3 python3-dev
-
Ubuntu 16.04 and later:
sudo apt install build-essential cmake python3-dev
Compiling YCM with semantic support for C-family languages through clangd:
cd ~/.vim/bundle/YouCompleteMe
python3 install.py --clangd-completer
Compiling YCM without semantic support for C-family languages:
cd ~/.vim/bundle/YouCompleteMe
python3 install.py
The following additional language support options are available:
- C# support: install Mono and add
--cs-completer
when callinginstall.py
. - Go support: install Go and add
--go-completer
when callinginstall.py
. - JavaScript and TypeScript support: install Node.js and npm and
add
--ts-completer
when callinginstall.py
. - Rust support: add
--rust-completer
when callinginstall.py
. - Java support: install JDK8 (version 8 required) and add
--java-completer
when callinginstall.py
.
To simply compile with everything enabled, there's a --all
flag. You need to
specify it manually by adding --clangd-completer
. So, to install with all
language features, ensure xbuild
, go
, node
, npm
and tools
are installed and in your PATH
, then simply run:
cd ~/.vim/bundle/YouCompleteMe
python3 install.py --all
That's it. You're done. Refer to the User Guide section on how to use YCM. Don't forget that if you want the C-family semantic completion engine to work, you will need to provide the compilation flags for your project to YCM. It's all in the User Guide.
YCM comes with sane defaults for its options, but you still may want to take a look at what's available for configuration. There are a few interesting options that are conservatively turned off by default that you may want to turn on.
Windows
Quick start, installing all completers
-
Install Visual Studio Build Tools 2017
-
Install cmake, vim and python
-
Install go, node and npm
-
Compile YCM
cd YouCompleteMe python3 install.py --all
-
Add
set encoding=utf-8
to your vimrc
Explanation for the quick start
These instructions (using install.py
) are the quickest way to install
YouCompleteMe, however they may not work for everyone. If the following
instructions don't work for you, check out the full installation
guide.
Important: we assume that you are using the cmd.exe
command prompt and
that you know how to add an executable to the PATH environment variable.
Make sure you have at least Vim 7.4.1578 with Python 3 support. You
can check the version and which Python is supported by typing :version
inside
Vim. Look at the features included: +python3/dyn
for Python 3.
Take note of the Vim architecture, i.e. 32 or
64-bit. It will be important when choosing the Python installer. We recommend
using a 64-bit client. Daily updated installers of 32-bit and 64-bit Vim with
Python 3 support are available.
NOTE: For all features, such as signature help, use Vim 8.1.1875 or later.
Add the line:
set encoding=utf-8
to your vimrc if not already present. This option is required by YCM. Note
that it does not prevent you from editing a file in another encoding than UTF-8.
You can do that by specifying the ++enc
argument to the :e
command.
Install YouCompleteMe with Vundle.
Remember: YCM is a plugin with a compiled component. If you update YCM
using Vundle and the ycm_core
library APIs have changed (happens
rarely), YCM will notify you to recompile it. You should then rerun the install
process.
Download and install the following software:
- Python 3. Be sure to pick the version
corresponding to your Vim architecture. It is Windows x86 for a 32-bit Vim
and Windows x86-64 for a 64-bit Vim. We recommend installing Python 3.
Additionally, the version of Python you install must match up exactly with
the version of Python that Vim is looking for. Type
:version
and look at the bottom of the page at the list of compiler flags. Look for flags that look similar to-DDYNAMIC_PYTHON3_DLL=\"python35.dll\"
. This indicates that Vim is looking for Python 3.5. You'll need one or the other installed, matching the version number exactly. - CMake. Add CMake executable to the PATH environment variable.
- Visual Studio Build Tools 2017. During setup, select Visual C++ build tools in Workloads.
Compiling YCM with semantic support for C-family languages through clangd:
cd %USERPROFILE%/vimfiles/bundle/YouCompleteMe
python install.py --clangd-completer
Compiling YCM without semantic support for C-family languages:
cd %USERPROFILE%/vimfiles/bundle/YouCompleteMe
python install.py
The following additional language support options are available:
- C# support: add
--cs-completer
when callinginstall.py
. Be sure that the build utilitymsbuild
is in your PATH. - Go support: install Go and add
--go-completer
when callinginstall.py
. - JavaScript and TypeScript support: install Node.js and npm and
add
--ts-completer
when callinginstall.py
. - Rust support: add
--rust-completer
when callinginstall.py
. - Java support: install JDK8 (version 8 required) and add
--java-completer
when callinginstall.py
.
To simply compile with everything enabled, there's a --all
flag. You need to
specify it manually by adding --clangd-completer
. So, to install with all
language features, ensure msbuild
, go
, node
and npm
tools
are installed and in your PATH
, then simply run:
cd %USERPROFILE%/vimfiles/bundle/YouCompleteMe
python install.py --all
You can specify the Microsoft Visual C++ (MSVC) version using the --msvc
option. YCM officially supports MSVC 14 (Visual Studio 2015), 15 (2017) and
MSVC 16 (Visual Studio 2019).
That's it. You're done. Refer to the User Guide section on how to use YCM. Don't forget that if you want the C-family semantic completion engine to work, you will need to provide the compilation flags for your project to YCM. It's all in the User Guide.
YCM comes with sane defaults for its options, but you still may want to take a look at what's available for configuration. There are a few interesting options that are conservatively turned off by default that you may want to turn on.
FreeBSD/OpenBSD
Quick start, installing all completers
-
Install cmake
pkg install cmake
-
Install xbuild, go, node and npm
-
Compile YCM
cd ~/.vim/bundle/YouCompleteMe python3 install.py --all
Explanation for the quick start
These instructions (using install.py
) are the quickest way to install
YouCompleteMe, however they may not work for everyone. If the following
instructions don't work for you, check out the full installation
guide.
NOTE: OpenBSD / FreeBSD are not officially supported platforms by YCM.
Make sure you have Vim 7.4.1578 with Python 3 support.
NOTE: For all features, such as signature help, use Vim 8.1.1875 or later.
OpenBSD 5.5 and later have a Vim that's recent enough. You can see the version of
Vim installed by running vim --version
.
For FreeBSD 11.x, the requirement is cmake:
pkg install cmake
Install YouCompleteMe with Vundle.
Remember: YCM is a plugin with a compiled component. If you update YCM
using Vundle and the ycm_core
library APIs have changed (happens
rarely), YCM will notify you to recompile it. You should then rerun the install
process.
Compiling YCM with semantic support for C-family languages through clangd:
cd ~/.vim/bundle/YouCompleteMe
./install.py --clangd-completer
Compiling YCM without semantic support for C-family languages:
cd ~/.vim/bundle/YouCompleteMe
./install.py
If the python
executable is not present, or the default python
is not the
one that should be compiled against, specify the python interpreter explicitly:
python3 install.py --clangd-completer
The following additional language support options are available:
- C# support: install Mono and add
--cs-completer
when calling./install.py
. - Go support: install Go and add
--go-completer
when calling./install.py
. - JavaScript and TypeScript support: install Node.js and npm and
add
--ts-completer
when callinginstall.py
. - Rust support: add
--rust-completer
when calling./install.py
. - Java support: install JDK8 (version 8 required) and add
--java-completer
when calling./install.py
.
To simply compile with everything enabled, there's a --all
flag. You need to
specify it manually by adding --clangd-completer
. So, to install with all
language features, ensure xbuild
, go
, node
, npm
and tools
are installed and in your PATH
, then simply run:
cd ~/.vim/bundle/YouCompleteMe
./install.py --all
That's it. You're done. Refer to the User Guide section on how to use YCM. Don't forget that if you want the C-family semantic completion engine to work, you will need to provide the compilation flags for your project to YCM. It's all in the User Guide.
YCM comes with sane defaults for its options, but you still may want to take a look at what's available for configuration. There are a few interesting options that are conservatively turned off by default that you may want to turn on.
Full Installation Guide
The [full installation guide][wiki-full-installation] has been moved to the wiki.
Quick Feature Summary
General (all languages)
- Super-fast identifier completer including tags files and syntax elements
- Intelligent suggestion ranking and filtering
- File and path suggestions
- Suggestions from Vim's OmniFunc
- UltiSnips snippet suggestions
C-family languages (C, C++, Objective C, Objective C++, CUDA)
- Semantic auto-completion with automatic fixes
- Signature help (when using clangd)
- Real-time diagnostic display
- Go to include/declaration/definition (
GoTo
, etc.) - View documentation comments for identifiers (
GetDoc
) - Type information for identifiers (
GetType
) - Automatically fix certain errors (
FixIt
) - Reference finding (
GoToReferences
) - Renaming symbols (
RefactorRename <new name>
) - Code formatting (
Format
)
C♯
- Semantic auto-completion
- Signature help
- Real-time diagnostic display
- Go to declaration/definition (
GoTo
, etc.) - Go to implementation (
GoToImplementation
) - View documentation comments for identifiers (
GetDoc
) - Type information for identifiers (
GetType
) - Automatically fix certain errors (
FixIt
) - Management of OmniSharp-Roslyn server instance
- Renaming symbols (
RefactorRename <new name>
) - Code formatting (
Format
)
Python
- Semantic auto-completion
- Signature help
- Go to definition (
GoTo
) - Reference finding (
GoToReferences
) - View documentation comments for identifiers (
GetDoc
) - Type information for identifiers (
GetType
)
Go
- Semantic auto-completion
- Signature help
- Real-time diagnostic display
- Go to declaration/definition (
GoTo
, etc.) - Go to type definition (
GoToType
) - Automatically fix certain errors (
FixIt
) - View documentation comments for identifiers (
GetDoc
) - Type information for identifiers (
GetType
) - Code formatting (
Format
) - Management of
gopls
server instance
JavaScript and TypeScript
- Semantic auto-completion with automatic import insertion
- Signature help
- Real-time diagnostic display
- Go to definition (
GoTo
,GoToDefinition
, andGoToDeclaration
are identical) - Go to type definition (
GoToType
) - Go to implementation (
GoToImplementation
) - Reference finding (
GoToReferences
) - View documentation comments for identifiers (
GetDoc
) - Type information for identifiers (
GetType
) - Automatically fix certain errors (
FixIt
) - Renaming symbols (
RefactorRename <new name>
) - Code formatting (
Format
) - Organize imports (
OrganizeImports
) - Management of
TSServer
server instance
Rust
- Semantic auto-completion
- Real-time diagnostic display
- Go to declaration/definition (
GoTo
, etc.) - Go to implementation (
GoToImplementation
) - Reference finding (
GoToReferences
) - View documentation comments for identifiers (
GetDoc
) - Automatically fix certain errors (
FixIt
) - Type information for identifiers (
GetType
) - Renaming symbols (
RefactorRename <new name>
) - Code formatting (
Format
) - Execute custom server command (
ExecuteCommand <args>
) - Management of
rls
server instance
Java
- Semantic auto-completion with automatic import insertion
- Signature help
- Real-time diagnostic display
- Go to definition (
GoTo
,GoToDefinition
, andGoToDeclaration
are identical) - Go to type definition (
GoToType
) - Go to implementation (
GoToImplementation
) - Reference finding (
GoToReferences
) - View documentation comments for identifiers (
GetDoc
) - Type information for identifiers (
GetType
) - Automatically fix certain errors including code generation (
FixIt
) - Renaming symbols (
RefactorRename <new name>
) - Code formatting (
Format
) - Organize imports (
OrganizeImports
) - Detection of java projects
- Execute custom server command (
ExecuteCommand <args>
) - Management of
jdt.ls
server instance
User Guide
General Usage
If the offered completions are too broad, keep typing characters; YCM will continue refining the offered completions based on your input.
Filtering is "smart-case" and "smart-diacritic" sensitive; if you are typing only lowercase letters, then it's case-insensitive. If your input contains uppercase letters, then the uppercase letters in your query must match uppercase letters in the completion strings (the lowercase letters still match both). On top of that, a letter with no diacritic marks will match that letter with or without marks:
matches | foo | fôo | fOo | fÔo |
---|---|---|---|---|
foo | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
fôo | ❌ | ✔️ | ❌ | ✔️ |
fOo | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
fÔo | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ |
Use the TAB key to accept a completion and continue pressing TAB to cycle through the completions. Use Shift-TAB to cycle backwards. Note that if you're using console Vim (that is, not Gvim or MacVim) then it's likely that the Shift-TAB binding will not work because the console will not pass it to Vim. You can remap the keys; see the Options section below.
Knowing a little bit about how YCM works internally will prevent confusion. YCM has several completion engines: an identifier-based completer that collects all of the identifiers in the current file and other files you visit (and your tags files) and searches them when you type (identifiers are put into per-filetype groups).
There are also several semantic engines in YCM. There are libclang-based and clangd-based completers that provide semantic completion for C-family languages. There's a Jedi-based completer for semantic completion for Python. There's also an omnifunc-based completer that uses data from Vim's omnicomplete system to provide semantic completions when no native completer exists for that language in YCM.
There are also other completion engines, like the UltiSnips completer and the filepath completer.
YCM automatically detects which completion engine would be the best in any situation. On occasion, it queries several of them at once, merges the outputs and presents the results to you.
Client-Server Architecture
YCM has a client-server architecture; the Vim part of YCM is only a thin client that talks to the ycmd HTTP+JSON server that has the vast majority of YCM logic and functionality. The server is started and stopped automatically as you start and stop Vim.
Completion String Ranking
The subsequence filter removes any completions that do not match the input, but then the sorting system kicks in. It's actually very complicated and uses lots of factors, but suffice it to say that "word boundary" (WB) subsequence character matches are "worth" more than non-WB matches. In effect, this means given an input of "gua", the completion "getUserAccount" would be ranked higher in the list than the "Fooguxa" completion (both of which are subsequence matches). A word-boundary character are all capital characters, characters preceded by an underscore and the first letter character in the completion string.
Signature Help
Signature help is an experimental feature for which we value your feedback. Valid signatures are displayed in a second popup menu and the current signature is highlighed along with the current arguemnt.
Signature help is triggered in insert mode automatically when
g:ycm_auto_trigger
is enabled and is not supported when it is not enabled.
The signatures popup is hidden when there are no matching signatures or when you leave insert mode. There is no key binding to clear the popup.
For more details on this feature and a few demos, check out the PR that proposed it.
General Semantic Completion
You can use Ctrl+Space to trigger the completion suggestions anywhere, even without a string prefix. This is useful to see which top-level functions are available for use.
C-family Semantic Completion
NOTE: YCM originally used the libclang
based engine for C-family, but
users should migrate to clangd, as it provides more features and better
performance. Users who rely on override_filename
in their .ycm_extra_conf.py
will need to stay on the old libclang
engine. Instructions on how to stay on
the old engine are available on the wiki.
Advantages of clangd over libclang include:
- Project wide indexing: Clangd has both dynamic and static index support. The dynamic index stores up-to-date symbols coming from any files you are currently editing, whereas static index contains project-wide symbol information. This symbol information is used for code completion and code navigation. Whereas libclang is limited to the current translation unit(TU).
- Code navigation: Clangd provides all the GoTo requests libclang provides and it improves those using the above mentioned index information to contain project-wide information rather than just the current TU.
- Rename: Clangd can perform semantic rename operations on the current file, whereas libclang doesn’t support such functionality.
- Code Completion: Clangd can perform code completions at a lower latency
than libclang; also, it has information about all the symbols in your
project so it can suggest items outside your current TU and also provides
proper
#include
insertions for those items. - Signature help: Clangd provides signature help so that you can see the names and types of arguments when calling functions.
- Format Code: Clangd provides code formatting either for the selected lines or the whole file, whereas libclang doesn’t have such functionality.
- Performance: Clangd has faster reparse and code completion times compared to libclang.
In order to perform semantic analysis such as code completion, GoTo
and
diagnostics, YouCompleteMe uses clangd
, which makes use of
clang compiler, sometimes also referred to as llvm. Like any compiler,
clang also requires a set of compile flags in order to parse your code. Simply
put: If clang can't parse your code, YouCompleteMe can't provide semantic
analysis.
There are 2 methods which can be used to provide compile flags to clang:
compilation database
Option 1: Use aThe easiest way to get YCM to compile your code is to use a compilation
database. A compilation database is usually generated by your build system
(e.g. CMake
) and contains the compiler invocation for each compilation unit in
your project.
For information on how to generate a compilation database, see the clang documentation. In short:
- If using CMake, add
-DCMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS=ON
when configuring (or addset( CMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS ON )
toCMakeLists.txt
) and copy or symlink the generated database to the root of your project. - If using Ninja, check out the
compdb
tool (-t compdb
) in its docs. - If using GNU make, check out compiledb or Bear.
- For other build systems, check out
.ycm_extra_conf.py
below.
If no .ycm_extra_conf.py
is found,
YouCompleteMe automatically tries to load a compilation database if there is
one.
YCM looks for a file named compile_commands.json
in the directory of the
opened file or in any directory above it in the hierarchy (recursively); when
the file is found before a local .ycm_extra_conf.py
, YouCompleteMe stops
searching the directories and lets clangd take over and handle the flags.
Option 2: Provide the flags manually
If you don't have a compilation database, or aren't able to generate one, you have to tell YouCompleteMe how to compile your code some other way.
Every C-family project is different. It is not possible for YCM to guess what compiler flags to supply for your project. Fortunately, YCM provides a mechanism for you to generate the flags for a particular file with arbitrary complexity. This is achieved by requiring you to provide a Python module which implements a trivial function which, given the file name as argument, returns a list of compiler flags to use to compile that file.
YCM looks for a .ycm_extra_conf.py
file in the directory of the opened file or
in any directory above it in the hierarchy (recursively); when the file is
found, it is loaded (only once!) as a Python module. YCM calls a Settings
method in that module which should provide it with the information necessary to
compile the current file. You can also provide a path to a global configuration
file with the
g:ycm_global_ycm_extra_conf
option,
which will be used as a fallback. To prevent the execution of malicious code
from a file you didn't write YCM will ask you once per .ycm_extra_conf.py
if
it is safe to load. This can be disabled and you can white-/blacklist files. See
the g:ycm_confirm_extra_conf
and
g:ycm_extra_conf_globlist
options
respectively.
This system was designed this way so that the user can perform any arbitrary sequence of operations to produce a list of compilation flags YCM should hand to Clang.
NOTE: It is highly recommended to include -x <language>
flag to libclang.
This is so that the correct language is detected, particularly for header files.
Common values are -x c
for C, -x c++
for C++, -x objc
for Objective-C, and
-x cuda
for CUDA.
To give you an impression, if your C++ project is trivial, and your usual
compilation command is: g++ -Wall -Wextra -Werror -o FILE.o FILE.cc
, then the
following .ycm_extra_conf.py
is enough to get semantic analysis from
YouCompleteMe:
def Settings( **kwargs ):
return {
'flags': [ '-x', 'c++', '-Wall', '-Wextra', '-Werror' ],
}
As you can see from the trivial example, YCM calls the Settings
method which
returns a dictionary with a single element 'flags'
. This element is a list
of compiler flags to pass to libclang for the current file. The absolute path of
that file is accessible under the filename
key of the kwargs
dictionary.
That's it! This is actually enough for most projects, but for complex projects
it is not uncommon to integrate directly with an existing build system using the
full power of the Python language.
For a more elaborate example,
see ycmd's own .ycm_extra_conf.py
. You should be able to
use it as a starting point. Don't just copy/paste that file somewhere and
expect things to magically work; your project needs different flags. Hint:
just replace the strings in the flags
variable with compilation flags
necessary for your project. That should be enough for 99% of projects.
You could also consider using YCM-Generator to generate the
ycm_extra_conf.py
file.
Errors during compilation
If Clang encounters errors when compiling the header files that your file includes, then it's probably going to take a long time to get completions. When the completion menu finally appears, it's going to have a large number of unrelated completion strings (type/function names that are not actually members). This is because Clang fails to build a precompiled preamble for your file if there are any errors in the included headers and that preamble is key to getting fast completions.
Call the :YcmDiags
command to see if any errors or warnings were detected in
your file.
Java Semantic Completion
Java quick Start
-
Ensure that you have enabled the Java completer. See the installation guide for details.
-
Create a project file (gradle or maven) file in the root directory of your Java project, by following the instructions below.
-
(Optional) Configure the LSP server. The jdt.ls configuration options can be found in their codebase.
-
If you previously used Eclim or Syntastic for Java, disable them for Java.
-
Edit a Java file from your project.
For the best experience, we highly recommend at least Vim 8.1.1875 when using Java support with YouCompleteMe.
Java Project Files
In order to provide semantic analysis, the Java completion engine requires knowledge of your project structure. In particular it needs to know the class path to use, when compiling your code. Fortunately jdt.ls supports eclipse project files, maven projects and gradle projects.
NOTE: Our recommendation is to use either maven or gradle projects.
Diagnostic display - Syntastic
The native support for Java includes YCM's native realtime diagnostics display. This can conflict with other diagnostics plugins like Syntastic, so when enabling Java support, please manually disable Syntastic Java diagnostics.
Add the following to your vimrc
:
let g:syntastic_java_checkers = []
Diagnostic display - Eclim
The native support for Java includes YCM's native realtime diagnostics display. This can conflict with other diagnostics plugins like Eclim, so when enabling Java support, please manually disable Eclim Java diagnostics.
Add the following to your vimrc
:
let g:EclimFileTypeValidate = 0
NOTE: We recommend disabling Eclim entirely when editing Java with YCM's
native Java support. This can be done temporarily with :EclimDisable
.
Eclipse Projects
Eclipse style projects require two files: .project and .classpath.
If your project already has these files due to previously being set up within eclipse, then no setup is required. jdt.ls should load the project just fine (it's basically eclipse after all).
However, if not, it is possible (easy in fact) to craft them manually, though it is not recommended. You're better off using gradle or maven (see below).
A simple eclipse style project example can be found in
the ycmd test directory. Normally all that is required is to copy these files to
the root of your project and to edit the .classpath
to add additional
libraries, such as:
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="/path/to/external/jar" />
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="/path/to/external/java/source" />
It may also be necessary to change the directory in which your source files are located (paths are relative to the .project file itself):
<classpathentry kind="src" output="target/classes" path="path/to/src/" />
NOTE: The eclipse project and classpath files are not a public interface and it is highly recommended to use Maven or Gradle project definitions if you don't already use eclipse to manage your projects.
Maven Projects
Maven needs a file named pom.xml in the root of the project. Once again a simple pom.xml can be found in ycmd source.
The format of pom.xml files is way beyond the scope of this document, but we do recommend using the various tools that can generate them for you, if you're not familiar with them already.
Gradle Projects
Gradle projects require a build.gradle. Again, there is a trivial example in ycmd's tests.
The format of build.gradle files is way beyond the scope of this document, but we do recommend using the various tools that can generate them for you, if you're not familiar with them already.
Troubleshooting
If you're not getting completions or diagnostics, check the server health:
- The Java completion engine takes a while to start up and parse your project.
You should be able to see its progress in the command line, and
:YcmDebugInfo
. Ensure that the following lines are present:
-- jdt.ls Java Language Server running
-- jdt.ls Java Language Server Startup Status: Ready
- If the above lines don't appear after a few minutes, check the jdt.ls and ycmd
log files using
:YcmToggleLogs
. The jdt.ls log file is called.log
(for some reason).
If you get a message about "classpath is incomplete", then make sure you have correctly configured the project files.
If you get messages about unresolved imports, then make sure you have correctly configured the project files, in particular check that the classpath is set correctly.
C# Semantic Completion
YCM relies on OmniSharp-Roslyn to provide completion and code navigation. OmniSharp-Roslyn needs a solution file for a C# project and there are two ways of letting YCM know about your solution files.
Automaticly discovered solution files
YCM will scan all parent directories of the file currently being edited and look
for file with .sln
extension.
Manually specified solution files
If YCM loads .ycm_extra_conf.py
which contains CSharpSolutionFile
function,
YCM will try to use that to determine the solution file. This is useful when one
wants to override the default behaviour and specify a solution file that is not
in any of the parent directories of the currently edited file. Example:
def CSharpSolutionFile( filepath ):
# `filepath` is the path of the file user is editing
return '/path/to/solution/file' # Can be relative to the `.ycm_extra_conf.py`
If the path returned by CSharpSolutionFile
is not an actual file, YCM will
fall back to the other way of finding the file.
Python Semantic Completion
YCM relies on the Jedi engine to provide completion and code navigation. By
default, it will pick the version of Python running the ycmd server and
use its sys.path
. While this is fine for simple projects, this needs to be
configurable when working with virtual environments or in a project with
third-party packages. The next sections explain how to do that.
Working with virtual environments
A common practice when working on a Python project is to install its
dependencies in a virtual environment and develop the project inside that
environment. To support this, YCM needs to know the interpreter path of the
virtual environment. You can specify it by creating a .ycm_extra_conf.py
file
at the root of your project with the following contents:
def Settings( **kwargs ):
return {
'interpreter_path': '/path/to/virtual/environment/python'
}
where /path/to/virtual/environment/python
is the path to the Python used
by the virtual environment you are working in. Typically, the executable can be
found in the Scripts
folder of the virtual environment directory on Windows
and in the bin
folder on other platforms.
If you don't like having to create a .ycm_extra_conf.py
file at the root of
your project and would prefer to specify the interpreter path with a Vim option,
read the Configuring through Vim options
section.
Working with third-party packages
Another common practice is to put the dependencies directly into the project and
add their paths to sys.path
at runtime in order to import them. YCM needs to
be told about this path manipulation to support those dependencies. This can be
done by creating a .ycm_extra_conf.py
file at the root of the project. This
file must define a Settings( **kwargs )
function returning a dictionary with
the list of paths to prepend to sys.path
under the sys_path
key. For
instance, the following .ycm_extra_conf.py
def Settings( **kwargs ):
return {
'sys_path': [
'/path/to/some/third_party/package',
'/path/to/another/third_party/package'
]
}
adds the paths /path/to/some/third_party/package
and
/path/to/another/third_party/package
at the start of sys.path
.
If you would rather prepend paths to sys.path
with a Vim option, read the
Configuring through Vim options section.
If you need further control on how to add paths to sys.path
, you should define
the PythonSysPath( **kwargs )
function in the .ycm_extra_conf.py
file. Its
keyword arguments are sys_path
which contains the default sys.path
, and
interpreter_path
which is the path to the Python interpreter. Here's a trivial
example that insert the /path/to/third_party/package
path at the second
position of sys.path
:
def PythonSysPath( **kwargs ):
sys_path = kwargs[ 'sys_path' ]
sys_path.insert( 1, '/path/to/third_party/package' )
return sys_path
A more advanced example can be found in YCM's own
.ycm_extra_conf.py
.
Configuring through Vim options
You may find inconvenient to have to create a .ycm_extra_conf.py
file at the
root of each one of your projects in order to set the path to the Python
interpreter and/or add paths to sys.path
and would prefer to be able to
configure those through Vim options. Don't worry, this is possible by using the
g:ycm_extra_conf_vim_data
option and
creating a global extra configuration file. Let's take an example. Suppose that
you want to set the interpreter path with the g:ycm_python_interpreter_path
option and prepend paths to sys.path
with the g:ycm_python_sys_path
option.
Suppose also that you want to name the global extra configuration file
global_extra_conf.py
and that you want to put it in your HOME folder. You
should then add the following lines to your vimrc:
let g:ycm_python_interpreter_path = ''
let g:ycm_python_sys_path = []
let g:ycm_extra_conf_vim_data = [
\ 'g:ycm_python_interpreter_path',
\ 'g:ycm_python_sys_path'
\]
let g:ycm_global_ycm_extra_conf = '~/global_extra_conf.py'
and create the ~/global_extra_conf.py
file with the following contents:
def Settings( **kwargs ):
client_data = kwargs[ 'client_data' ]
return {
'interpreter_path': client_data[ 'g:ycm_python_interpreter_path' ],
'sys_path': client_data[ 'g:ycm_python_sys_path' ]
}
That's it. You are done. Note that you don't need to restart the server when setting one of the options. YCM will automatically pick the new values.
Rust Semantic Completion
Completions and GoTo commands within the current crate and its dependencies
should work out of the box with no additional configuration (provided that you
built YCM with the --rust-completer
flag; see the Installation
section for details). The install script takes care of
installing the Rust source code, so no configuration is necessary.
To configure RLS look up rls configuration options. The value of the ls
key must be structured as in the
following example:
def Settings( **kwargs ):
if kwargs[ 'language' ] == 'rust':
return {
'ls': {
'rust': {
'features': ['http2','spnego'],
'all_targets': False,
'wait_to_build': 1500,
}
}
}
That is to say, ls
should be paired with a dictionary containing a key rust
,
which should be paired with another dictionary in which the keys are RLS
options.
Also, for the time being, if you make changes to your Cargo.toml
that RLS
doesn't seem to recognize, you may need to restart it manually with
:YcmCompleter RestartServer
.
Go Semantic Completion
Completions and GoTo commands should work out of the box (provided that you
built YCM with the --go-completer
flag; see the Installation
section for details). The server only works for projects with
the "canonical" layout.
While YCM can configure a LSP server, currently gopls
doesn't implement the required notification.
JavaScript and TypeScript Semantic Completion
NOTE: YCM originally used the Tern engine for JavaScript but due to
Tern not being maintained anymore by its main author and the TSServer
engine offering more features, YCM is moving to TSServer. This won't affect
you if you were already using Tern but you are encouraged to do the switch
by deleting the third_party/ycmd/third_party/tern_runtime/node_modules
directory in YCM folder. If you are a new user but still want to use Tern,
you should pass the --js-completer
option to the install.py
script during
installation. Further instructions on how to setup YCM with Tern are
available on the wiki.
All JavaScript and TypeScript features are provided by the TSServer engine,
which is included in the TypeScript SDK. To enable these features, install
Node.js and npm and call the install.py
script with the
--ts-completer
flag.
TSServer relies on the jsconfig.json
file for JavaScript
and the tsconfig.json
file for TypeScript to analyze your
project. Ensure the file exists at the root of your project.
To get diagnostics in JavaScript, set the checkJs
option to true
in your
jsconfig.json
file:
{
"compilerOptions": {
"checkJs": true
}
}
Semantic Completion for Other Languages
C-family, C#, Go, Java, Python, Rust, and JavaScript/TypeScript languages are supported natively by YouCompleteMe using the Clang, OmniSharp-Roslyn, Gopls, jdt.ls, Jedi, rls, and TSServer engines, respectively. Check the installation section for instructions to enable these features if desired.
Plugging an arbitrary LSP server
Similar to other LSP clients, YCM can use an arbitrary LSP server with the help
of g:ycm_language_server
option. An
example of a value of this option would be:
let g:ycm_language_server =
\ [
\ {
\ 'name': 'yaml',
\ 'cmdline': [ '/path/to/yaml/server/yaml-language-server', '--stdio' ],
\ 'filetypes': [ 'yaml' ]
\ },
\ {
\ 'name': 'rust',
\ 'cmdline': [ 'ra_lsp_server' ],
\ 'filetypes': [ 'rust' ],
\ 'project_root_files': [ 'Cargo.toml' ]
\ }
\ ]
project_root_files
is an optional key, since not all servers need it.
When configuring a LSP server the value of the name
key
will be used as the kwargs[ 'language' ]
.
See the LSP Examples project for more examples of configuring the likes of PHP, Ruby, Kotlin, and D.
omnifunc
for semantic completion
Using YCM will use your omnifunc
(see :h omnifunc
in Vim) as a source for semantic
completions if it does not have a native semantic completion engine for your
file's filetype. Vim comes with okayish omnifuncs for various languages like
Ruby, PHP, etc. It depends on the language.
You can get a stellar omnifunc for Ruby with Eclim. Just make sure you have
the latest Eclim installed and configured (this means Eclim >= 2.2.*
and
Eclipse >= 4.2.*
).
After installing Eclim remember to create a new Eclipse project within your
application by typing :ProjectCreate <path-to-your-project> -n ruby
inside vim
and don't forget to have let g:EclimCompletionMethod = 'omnifunc'
in your
vimrc. This will make YCM and Eclim play nice; YCM will use Eclim's omnifuncs as
the data source for semantic completions and provide the auto-triggering and
subsequence-based matching (and other YCM features) on top of it.
LSP Configuration
Many LSP servers allow some level of user configuration. YCM enables this with
the help of .ycm_extra_conf.py
files. Here's an example of jdt.ls user
configuration.
def Settings( **kwargs ):
if kwargs[ 'language' ] == 'java':
return { 'ls': { 'java.format.onType.enabled': True } }
The ls
key tells YCM that the dictionary should be passed to thet LSP server.
For each of the LSP server's configuration you should look up the respective
server's documentation.
Writing New Semantic Completers
You have two options here: writing an omnifunc
for Vim's omnicomplete system
that YCM will then use through its omni-completer, or a custom completer for YCM
using the Completer API.
Here are the differences between the two approaches:
- You have to use VimScript to write the omnifunc, but get to use Python to write for the Completer API; this by itself should make you want to use the API.
- The Completer API is a much more powerful way to integrate with YCM and it provides a wider set of features. For instance, you can make your Completer query your semantic back-end in an asynchronous fashion, thus not blocking Vim's GUI thread while your completion system is processing stuff. This is impossible with VimScript. All of YCM's completers use the Completer API.
- Performance with the Completer API is better since Python executes faster than VimScript.
If you want to use the omnifunc
system, see the relevant Vim docs with :h complete-functions
. For the Completer API, see the API docs.
If you want to upstream your completer into YCM's source, you should use the Completer API.
Diagnostic Display
YCM will display diagnostic notifications for the C-family, C#, Go, Java, JavaScript, Rust and TypeScript languages. Since YCM continuously recompiles your file as you type, you'll get notified of errors and warnings in your file as fast as possible.
Here are the various pieces of the diagnostic UI:
- Icons show up in the Vim gutter on lines that have a diagnostic.
- Regions of text related to diagnostics are highlighted (by default, a red
wavy underline in
gvim
and a red background invim
). - Moving the cursor to a line with a diagnostic echoes the diagnostic text.
- Vim's location list is automatically populated with diagnostic data (off by default, see options).
The new diagnostics (if any) will be displayed the next time you press any key on the keyboard. So if you stop typing and just wait for the new diagnostics to come in, that will not work. You need to press some key for the GUI to update.
Having to press a key to get the updates is unfortunate, but cannot be changed due to the way Vim internals operate; there is no way that a background task can update Vim's GUI after it has finished running. You have to press a key. This will make YCM check for any pending diagnostics updates.
You can force a full, blocking compilation cycle with the
:YcmForceCompileAndDiagnostics
command (you may want to map that command to a
key; try putting nnoremap <F5> :YcmForceCompileAndDiagnostics<CR>
in your
vimrc). Calling this command will force YCM to immediately recompile your file
and display any new diagnostics it encounters. Do note that recompilation with
this command may take a while and during this time the Vim GUI will be
blocked.
YCM will display a short diagnostic message when you move your cursor to the
line with the error. You can get a detailed diagnostic message with the
<leader>d
key mapping (can be changed in the options) YCM provides when your
cursor is on the line with the diagnostic.
You can also see the full diagnostic message for all the diagnostics in the
current file in Vim's locationlist
, which can be opened with the :lopen
and
:lclose
commands (make sure you have set let g:ycm_always_populate_location_list = 1
in your vimrc). A good way to toggle
the display of the locationlist
with a single key mapping is provided by
another (very small) Vim plugin called ListToggle (which also makes it
possible to change the height of the locationlist
window), also written by
yours truly.
Diagnostic Highlighting Groups
You can change the styling for the highlighting groups YCM uses. For the signs in the Vim gutter, the relevant groups are:
YcmErrorSign
, which falls back to groupSyntasticErrorSign
and thenerror
if they existYcmWarningSign
, which falls back to groupSyntasticWarningSign
and thentodo
if they exist
You can also style the line that has the warning/error with these groups:
YcmErrorLine
, which falls back to groupSyntasticErrorLine
if it existsYcmWarningLine
, which falls back to groupSyntasticWarningLine
if it exists
Note that the line highlighting groups only work when the
g:ycm_enable_diagnostic_signs
option is set. If you want highlighted lines but no signs in the Vim gutter,
ensure that your Vim version is 7.4.2201 or later and set the signcolumn
option to off
in your vimrc:
set signcolumn=off
The syntax groups used to highlight regions of text with errors/warnings:
YcmErrorSection
, which falls back to groupSyntasticError
if it exists and thenSpellBad
YcmWarningSection
, which falls back to groupSyntasticWarning
if it exists and thenSpellCap
Here's how you'd change the style for a group:
highlight YcmErrorLine guibg=#3f0000
Commands
:YcmRestartServer
command
The If the ycmd completion server suddenly stops for some reason, you can restart it with this command.
:YcmForceCompileAndDiagnostics
command
The Calling this command will force YCM to immediately recompile your file and display any new diagnostics it encounters. Do note that recompilation with this command may take a while and during this time the Vim GUI will be blocked.
You may want to map this command to a key; try putting nnoremap <F5> :YcmForceCompileAndDiagnostics<CR>
in your vimrc.
:YcmDiags
command
The Calling this command will fill Vim's locationlist
with errors or warnings if
any were detected in your file and then open it. If a given error or warning can
be fixed by a call to :YcmCompleter FixIt
, then (FixIt available)
is
appended to the error or warning text. See the FixIt
completer subcommand for
more information.
NOTE: The absence of (FixIt available)
does not strictly imply a fix-it
is not available as not all completers are able to provide this indication. For
example, the c-sharp completer provides many fix-its but does not add this
additional indication.
The g:ycm_open_loclist_on_ycm_diags
option can be used to prevent the location
list from opening, but still have it filled with new diagnostic data. See the
Options section for details.
:YcmShowDetailedDiagnostic
command
The This command shows the full diagnostic text when the user's cursor is on the line with the diagnostic.
:YcmDebugInfo
command
The This will print out various debug information for the current file. Useful to see what compile commands will be used for the file if you're using the semantic completion engine.
:YcmToggleLogs
command
The This command presents the list of logfiles created by YCM, the ycmd
server, and the semantic engine server for the current filetype, if any.
One of these logfiles can be opened in the editor (or closed if already open) by
entering the corresponding number or by clicking on it with the mouse.
Additionally, this command can take the logfile names as arguments. Use the
<TAB>
key (or any other key defined by the wildchar
option) to complete the
arguments or to cycle through them (depending on the value of the wildmode
option). Each logfile given as an argument is directly opened (or closed if
already open) in the editor. Only for debugging purposes.
:YcmCompleter
command
The This command gives access to a number of additional IDE-like features in YCM, for things like semantic GoTo, type information, FixIt and refactoring.
This command accepts a range that can either be specified through a selection in
one of Vim's visual modes (see :h visual-use
) or on the command line. For
instance, :2,5YcmCompleter
will apply the command from line 2 to line 5. This
is useful for the Format
subcommand.
Call YcmCompleter
without further arguments for a list of the commands you can
call for the current completer.
See the file type feature summary for an overview of the features available for each file type. See the YcmCompleter subcommands section for more information on the available subcommands and their usage.
YcmCompleter Subcommands
NOTE: See the docs for the YcmCompleter
command before tackling this
section.
The invoked subcommand is automatically routed to the currently active semantic
completer, so :YcmCompleter GoToDefinition
will invoke the GoToDefinition
subcommand on the Python semantic completer if the currently active file is a
Python one and on the Clang completer if the currently active file is a C-family
language one.
You may also want to map the subcommands to something less verbose; for
instance, nnoremap <leader>jd :YcmCompleter GoTo<CR>
maps the <leader>jd
sequence to the longer subcommand invocation.
GoTo Commands
These commands are useful for jumping around and exploring code. When moving
the cursor, the subcommands add entries to Vim's jumplist
so you can use
CTRL-O
to jump back to where you were before invoking the command (and
CTRL-I
to jump forward; see :h jumplist
for details). If there is more
than one destination, the quickfix list (see :h quickfix
) is populated with
the available locations and opened to full width at the bottom of the screen.
You can change this behavior by using the YcmQuickFixOpened
autocommand.
GoToInclude
subcommand
The Looks up the current line for a header and jumps to it.
Supported in filetypes: c, cpp, objc, objcpp, cuda
GoToDeclaration
subcommand
The Looks up the symbol under the cursor and jumps to its declaration.
Supported in filetypes: c, cpp, objc, objcpp, cuda, cs, go, java, javascript, python, rust, typescript
GoToDefinition
subcommand
The Looks up the symbol under the cursor and jumps to its definition.
NOTE: For C-family languages this only works in certain situations,
namely when the definition of the symbol is in the current translation unit. A
translation unit consists of the file you are editing and all the files you are
including with #include
directives (directly or indirectly) in that file.
Supported in filetypes: c, cpp, objc, objcpp, cuda, cs, go, java, javascript, python, rust, typescript
GoTo
subcommand
The This command tries to perform the "most sensible" GoTo operation it can. Currently, this means that it tries to look up the symbol under the cursor and jumps to its definition if possible; if the definition is not accessible from the current translation unit, jumps to the symbol's declaration. For C-family languages, it first tries to look up the current line for a header and jump to it. For C#, implementations are also considered and preferred.
Supported in filetypes: c, cpp, objc, objcpp, cuda, cs, go, java, javascript, python, rust, typescript
GoToImprecise
subcommand
The WARNING: This command trades correctness for speed!
Same as the GoTo
command except that it doesn't recompile the file with
libclang before looking up nodes in the AST. This can be very useful when you're
editing files that take long to compile but you know that you haven't made any
changes since the last parse that would lead to incorrect jumps. When you're
just browsing around your codebase, this command can spare you quite a bit of
latency.
Supported in filetypes: c, cpp, objc, objcpp, cuda
GoToReferences
subcommand
The This command attempts to find all of the references within the project to the identifier under the cursor and populates the quickfix list with those locations.
Supported in filetypes: c, cpp, objc, objcpp, cuda, java, javascript, python, typescript, rust
GoToImplementation
subcommand
The Looks up the symbol under the cursor and jumps to its implementation (i.e. non-interface). If there are multiple implementations, instead provides a list of implementations to choose from.
Supported in filetypes: cs, java, rust, typescript, javascript
GoToImplementationElseDeclaration
subcommand
The Looks up the symbol under the cursor and jumps to its implementation if one, else jump to its declaration. If there are multiple implementations, instead provides a list of implementations to choose from.
Supported in filetypes: cs
GoToType
subcommand
The Looks up the symbol under the cursor and jumps to the definition of its type e.g. if the symbol is an object, go to the definition of its class.
Supported in filetypes: go, java, javascript, typescript
Semantic Information Commands
These commands are useful for finding static information about the code, such as the types of variables, viewing declarations and documentation strings.
GetType
subcommand
The Echos the type of the variable or method under the cursor, and where it differs, the derived type.
For example:
std::string s;
Invoking this command on s
returns std::string => std::basic_string<char>
NOTE: Causes re-parsing of the current translation unit.
Supported in filetypes: c, cpp, objc, objcpp, cuda, java, javascript, go, python, typescript, rust
GetTypeImprecise
subcommand
The WARNING: This command trades correctness for speed!
Same as the GetType
command except that it doesn't recompile the file with
libclang before looking up nodes in the AST. This can be very useful when you're
editing files that take long to compile but you know that you haven't made any
changes since the last parse that would lead to incorrect type. When you're
just browsing around your codebase, this command can spare you quite a bit of
latency.
Supported in filetypes: c, cpp, objc, objcpp, cuda
GetParent
subcommand
The Echos the semantic parent of the point under the cursor.
The semantic parent is the item that semantically contains the given position.
For example:
class C {
void f();
};
void C::f() {
}
In the out-of-line definition of C::f
, the semantic parent is the class C
,
of which this function is a member.
In the example above, both declarations of C::f
have C
as their semantic
context, while the lexical context of the first C::f
is C
and the lexical
context of the second C::f
is the translation unit.
For global declarations, the semantic parent is the translation unit.
NOTE: Causes re-parsing of the current translation unit.
Supported in filetypes: c, cpp, objc, objcpp, cuda
GetDoc
subcommand
The Displays the preview window populated with quick info about the identifier under the cursor. Depending on the file type, this includes things like:
- The type or declaration of identifier,
- Doxygen/javadoc comments,
- Python docstrings,
- etc.
Supported in filetypes: c, cpp, objc, objcpp, cuda, cs, go, java, javascript, python, typescript, rust
GetDocImprecise
subcommand
The WARNING: This command trades correctness for speed!
Same as the GetDoc
command except that it doesn't recompile the file with
libclang before looking up nodes in the AST. This can be very useful when you're
editing files that take long to compile but you know that you haven't made any
changes since the last parse that would lead to incorrect docs. When you're
just browsing around your codebase, this command can spare you quite a bit of
latency.
Supported in filetypes: c, cpp, objc, objcpp, cuda
Refactoring Commands
These commands make changes to your source code in order to perform refactoring or code correction. YouCompleteMe does not perform any action which cannot be undone, and never saves or writes files to the disk.
FixIt
subcommand
The Where available, attempts to make changes to the buffer to correct diagnostics on the current line. Where multiple suggestions are available (such as when there are multiple ways to resolve a given warning, or where multiple diagnostics are reported for the current line), the options are presented and one can be selected.
Completers which provide diagnostics may also provide trivial modifications to the source in order to correct the diagnostic. Examples include syntax errors such as missing trailing semi-colons, spurious characters, or other errors which the semantic engine can deterministically suggest corrections.
If no fix-it is available for the current line, or there is no diagnostic on the current line, this command has no effect on the current buffer. If any modifications are made, the number of changes made to the buffer is echo'd and the user may use the editor's undo command to revert.
When a diagnostic is available, and g:ycm_echo_current_diagnostic
is set to 1,
then the text (FixIt)
is appended to the echo'd diagnostic when the
completer is able to add this indication. The text (FixIt available)
is
also appended to the diagnostic text in the output of the :YcmDiags
command
for any diagnostics with available fix-its (where the completer can provide this
indication).
NOTE: Causes re-parsing of the current translation unit.
Supported in filetypes: c, cpp, objc, objcpp, cuda, cs, go, java, javascript, rust, typescript
RefactorRename <new name>
subcommand
The In supported file types, this command attempts to perform a semantic rename of the identifier under the cursor. This includes renaming declarations, definitions and usages of the identifier, or any other language-appropriate action. The specific behavior is defined by the semantic engine in use.
Similar to FixIt
, this command applies automatic modifications to your source
files. Rename operations may involve changes to multiple files, which may or may
not be open in Vim buffers at the time. YouCompleteMe handles all of this for
you. The behavior is described in the following section.
Supported in filetypes: c, cpp, objc, objcpp, cuda, java, javascript, typescript, rust, cs
Multi-file Refactor
When a Refactor or FixIt command touches multiple files, YouCompleteMe attempts to apply those modifications to any existing open, visible buffer in the current tab. If no such buffer can be found, YouCompleteMe opens the file in a new small horizontal split at the top of the current window, applies the change, and then hides the window. NOTE: The buffer remains open, and must be manually saved. A confirmation dialog is opened prior to doing this to remind you that this is about to happen.
Once the modifications have been made, the quickfix list (see :help quickfix
)
is populated with the locations of all modifications. This can be used to review
all automatic changes made by using :copen
. Typically, use the CTRL-W <enter>
combination to open the selected file in a new split. It is possible to
customize how the quickfix window is opened by using the YcmQuickFixOpened
autocommand.
The buffers are not saved automatically. That is, you must save the modified
buffers manually after reviewing the changes from the quickfix list. Changes
can be undone using Vim's powerful undo features (see :help undo
). Note
that Vim's undo is per-buffer, so to undo all changes, the undo commands must
be applied in each modified buffer separately.
NOTE: While applying modifications, Vim may find files which are already
open and have a swap file. The command is aborted if you select Abort or Quit in
any such prompts. This leaves the Refactor operation partially complete and must
be manually corrected using Vim's undo features. The quickfix list is not
populated in this case. Inspect :buffers
or equivalent (see :help buffers
)
to see the buffers that were opened by the command.
Format
subcommand
The This command formats the whole buffer or some part of it according to the value
of the Vim options shiftwidth
and expandtab
(see :h 'sw'
and :h et
respectively). To format a specific part of your document, you can either select
it in one of Vim's visual modes (see :h visual-use
) and run the command or
directly enter the range on the command line, e.g. :2,5YcmCompleter Format
to
format it from line 2 to line 5.
Supported in filetypes: c, cpp, objc, objcpp, cuda, java, javascript, go, typescript, rust, cs
OrganizeImports
subcommand
The This command removes unused imports and sorts imports in the current file. It can also group imports from the same module in TypeScript and resolves imports in Java.
Supported in filetypes: java, javascript, typescript
Miscellaneous Commands
These commands are for general administration, rather than IDE-like features. They cover things like the semantic engine server instance and compilation flags.
ExecuteCommand <args>
subcommand
The Some LSP completers (currently Rust and Java completers) support executing server specific commands. Consult the rls and jdt.ls respective documentations to find out what commands are supported and which arguments are expected.
The support for ExecuteCommand
was implemented to support plugins like
vimspector to debug java, but isn't limited to that specific use case.
RestartServer
subcommand
The Restarts the semantic-engine-as-localhost-server for those semantic engines that work as separate servers that YCM talks to.
Supported in filetypes: c, cpp, objc, objcpp, cuda, cs, go, java, javascript, rust, typescript
ReloadSolution
subcommand
The Instruct the Omnisharp-Roslyn server to clear its cache and reload all files from disk. This is useful when files are added, removed, or renamed in the solution, files are changed outside of Vim, or whenever Omnisharp-Roslyn cache is out-of-sync.
Supported in filetypes: cs
Functions
youcompleteme#GetErrorCount
function
The Get the number of YCM Diagnostic errors. If no errors are present, this function returns 0.
For example:
call youcompleteme#GetErrorCount()
Both this function and youcompleteme#GetWarningCount
can be useful when
integrating YCM with other Vim plugins. For example, a lightline user could
add a diagnostics section to their statusline which would display the number of
errors and warnings.
youcompleteme#GetWarningCount
function
The Get the number of YCM Diagnostic warnings. If no warnings are present, this function returns 0.
For example:
call youcompleteme#GetWarningCount()
Autocommands
YcmLocationOpened
autocommand
The This User
autocommand is fired when YCM opens the location list window in
response to the YcmDiags
command. By default, the location list window is
opened to the bottom of the current window and its height is set to fit all
entries. This behavior can be overridden by using the YcmLocationOpened
autocommand which is triggered while the cursor is in the location list window.
For instance:
function! s:CustomizeYcmLocationWindow()
" Move the window to the top of the screen.
wincmd K
" Set the window height to 5.
5wincmd _
" Switch back to working window.
wincmd p
endfunction
autocmd User YcmLocationOpened call s:CustomizeYcmLocationWindow()
YcmQuickFixOpened
autocommand
The This User
autocommand is fired when YCM opens the quickfix window in response
to the GoTo*
and RefactorRename
subcommands. By default, the quickfix window
is opened to full width at the bottom of the screen and its height is set to fit
all entries. This behavior can be overridden by using the YcmQuickFixOpened
autocommand which is triggered while the cursor is in the quickfix window. For
instance:
function! s:CustomizeYcmQuickFixWindow()
" Move the window to the top of the screen.
wincmd K
" Set the window height to 5.
5wincmd _
endfunction
autocmd User YcmQuickFixOpened call s:CustomizeYcmQuickFixWindow()
Options
All options have reasonable defaults so if the plug-in works after installation you don't need to change any options. These options can be configured in your vimrc script by including a line like this:
let g:ycm_min_num_of_chars_for_completion = 1
Note that after changing an option in your vimrc script you have to
restart ycmd with the :YcmRestartServer
command for the changes to take
effect.
g:ycm_min_num_of_chars_for_completion
option
The This option controls the number of characters the user needs to type before
identifier-based completion suggestions are triggered. For example, if the
option is set to 2
, then when the user types a second alphanumeric character
after a whitespace character, completion suggestions will be triggered. This
option is NOT used for semantic completion.
Setting this option to a high number like 99
effectively turns off the
identifier completion engine and just leaves the semantic engine.
Default: 2
let g:ycm_min_num_of_chars_for_completion = 2
g:ycm_min_num_identifier_candidate_chars
option
The This option controls the minimum number of characters that a completion candidate coming from the identifier completer must have to be shown in the popup menu.
A special value of 0
means there is no limit.
NOTE: This option only applies to the identifier completer; it has no effect on the various semantic completers.
Default: 0
let g:ycm_min_num_identifier_candidate_chars = 0
g:ycm_max_num_candidates
option
The This option controls the maximum number of semantic completion suggestions shown
in the completion menu. This only applies to suggestions from semantic
completion engines; see the g:ycm_max_identifier_candidates
option to limit the number of
suggestions from the identifier-based engine.
A special value of 0
means there is no limit.
NOTE: Setting this option to 0
or to a value greater than 100
is not
recommended as it will slow down completion when there are a very large number
of suggestions.
Default: 50
let g:ycm_max_num_candidates = 50
g:ycm_max_num_identifier_candidates
option
The This option controls the maximum number of completion suggestions from the identifier-based engine shown in the completion menu.
A special value of 0
means there is no limit.
NOTE: Setting this option to 0
or to a value greater than 100
is not
recommended as it will slow down completion when there are a very large number
of suggestions.
Default: 10
let g:ycm_max_num_identifier_candidates = 10
g:ycm_auto_trigger
option
The When set to 0
, this option turns off YCM's identifier completer (the
as-you-type popup) and the semantic triggers (the popup you'd get after typing
.
or ->
in say C++). You can still force semantic completion with the
<C-Space>
shortcut.
If you want to just turn off the identifier completer but keep the semantic
triggers, you should set g:ycm_min_num_of_chars_for_completion
to a high
number like 99
.
Default: 1
let g:ycm_auto_trigger = 1
g:ycm_filetype_whitelist
option
The This option controls for which Vim filetypes (see :h filetype
) should YCM be
turned on. The option value should be a Vim dictionary with keys being filetype
strings (like python
, cpp
, etc.) and values being unimportant (the
dictionary is used like a hash set, meaning that only the keys matter).
The *
key is special and matches all filetypes. By default, the whitelist
contains only this *
key.
YCM also has a g:ycm_filetype_blacklist
option that lists filetypes for which
YCM shouldn't be turned on. YCM will work only in filetypes that both the
whitelist and the blacklist allow (the blacklist "allows" a filetype by not
having it as a key).
For example, let's assume you want YCM to work in files with the cpp
filetype.
The filetype should then be present in the whitelist either directly (cpp
key
in the whitelist) or indirectly through the special *
key. It should not be
present in the blacklist.
Filetypes that are blocked by the either of the lists will be completely ignored by YCM, meaning that neither the identifier-based completion engine nor the semantic engine will operate in them.
You can get the filetype of the current file in Vim with :set ft?
.
Default: {'*': 1}
let g:ycm_filetype_whitelist = {'*': 1}
g:ycm_filetype_blacklist
option
The This option controls for which Vim filetypes (see :h filetype
) should YCM be
turned off. The option value should be a Vim dictionary with keys being filetype
strings (like python
, cpp
, etc.) and values being unimportant (the
dictionary is used like a hash set, meaning that only the keys matter).
See the g:ycm_filetype_whitelist
option for more details on how this works.
Default: [see next line]
let g:ycm_filetype_blacklist = {
\ 'tagbar': 1,
\ 'notes': 1,
\ 'markdown': 1,
\ 'netrw': 1,
\ 'unite': 1,
\ 'text': 1,
\ 'vimwiki': 1,
\ 'pandoc': 1,
\ 'infolog': 1,
\ 'leaderf': 1,
\ 'mail': 1
\}
g:ycm_filetype_specific_completion_to_disable
option
The This option controls for which Vim filetypes (see :h filetype
) should the YCM
semantic completion engine be turned off. The option value should be a Vim
dictionary with keys being filetype strings (like python
, cpp
, etc.) and
values being unimportant (the dictionary is used like a hash set, meaning that
only the keys matter). The listed filetypes will be ignored by the YCM semantic
completion engine, but the identifier-based completion engine will still trigger
in files of those filetypes.
Note that even if semantic completion is not turned off for a specific filetype, you will not get semantic completion if the semantic engine does not support that filetype.
You can get the filetype of the current file in Vim with :set ft?
.
Default: [see next line]
let g:ycm_filetype_specific_completion_to_disable = {
\ 'gitcommit': 1
\}
g:ycm_filepath_blacklist
option
The This option controls for which Vim filetypes (see :h filetype
) should filepath
completion be disabled. The option value should be a Vim dictionary with keys
being filetype strings (like python
, cpp
, etc.) and values being unimportant
(the dictionary is used like a hash set, meaning that only the keys matter).
The *
key is special and matches all filetypes. Use this key if you want to
completely disable filepath completion:
let g:ycm_filepath_blacklist = {'*': 1}
You can get the filetype of the current file in Vim with :set ft?
.
Default: [see next line]
let g:ycm_filepath_blacklist = {
\ 'html': 1,
\ 'jsx': 1,
\ 'xml': 1,
\}
g:ycm_show_diagnostics_ui
option
The When set, this option turns on YCM's diagnostic display features. See the Diagnostic display section in the User Manual for more details.
Specific parts of the diagnostics UI (like the gutter signs, text highlighting, diagnostic echo and auto location list population) can be individually turned on or off. See the other options below for details.
Note that YCM's diagnostics UI is only supported for C-family languages.
When set, this option also makes YCM remove all Syntastic checkers set for the
c
, cpp
, objc
, objcpp
, and cuda
filetypes since this would conflict
with YCM's own diagnostics UI.
If you're using YCM's identifier completer in C-family languages but cannot use the clang-based semantic completer for those languages and want to use the GCC Syntastic checkers, unset this option.
Default: 1
let g:ycm_show_diagnostics_ui = 1
g:ycm_error_symbol
option
The YCM will use the value of this option as the symbol for errors in the Vim gutter.
This option is part of the Syntastic compatibility layer; if the option is not
set, YCM will fall back to the value of the g:syntastic_error_symbol
option
before using this option's default.
Default: >>
let g:ycm_error_symbol = '>>'
g:ycm_warning_symbol
option
The YCM will use the value of this option as the symbol for warnings in the Vim gutter.
This option is part of the Syntastic compatibility layer; if the option is not
set, YCM will fall back to the value of the g:syntastic_warning_symbol
option
before using this option's default.
Default: >>
let g:ycm_warning_symbol = '>>'
g:ycm_enable_diagnostic_signs
option
The When this option is set, YCM will put icons in Vim's gutter on lines that have a
diagnostic set. Turning this off will also turn off the YcmErrorLine
and
YcmWarningLine
highlighting.
This option is part of the Syntastic compatibility layer; if the option is not
set, YCM will fall back to the value of the g:syntastic_enable_signs
option
before using this option's default.
Default: 1
let g:ycm_enable_diagnostic_signs = 1
g:ycm_enable_diagnostic_highlighting
option
The When this option is set, YCM will highlight regions of text that are related to the diagnostic that is present on a line, if any.
This option is part of the Syntastic compatibility layer; if the option is not
set, YCM will fall back to the value of the g:syntastic_enable_highlighting
option before using this option's default.
Default: 1
let g:ycm_enable_diagnostic_highlighting = 1
g:ycm_echo_current_diagnostic
option
The When this option is set, YCM will echo the text of the diagnostic present on the
current line when you move your cursor to that line. If a FixIt
is available
for the current diagnostic, then (FixIt)
is appended.
This option is part of the Syntastic compatibility layer; if the option is not
set, YCM will fall back to the value of the g:syntastic_echo_current_error
option before using this option's default.
Default: 1
let g:ycm_echo_current_diagnostic = 1
g:ycm_filter_diagnostics
option
The This option controls which diagnostics will be rendered by YCM. This option holds a dictionary of key-values, where the keys are Vim's filetype strings delimited by commas and values are dictionaries describing the filter.
A filter is a dictionary of key-values, where the keys are the type of filter, and the value is a list of arguments to that filter. In the case of just a single item in the list, you may omit the brackets and just provide the argument directly. If any filter matches a diagnostic, it will be dropped and YCM will not render it.
The following filter types are supported:
- "regex": Accepts a string regular expression. This type matches when the regex (treated as case-insensitive) is found in the diagnostic text.
- "level": Accepts a string level, either "warning" or "error." This type matches when the diagnostic has the same level.
NOTE: The regex syntax is NOT Vim's, it's Python's.
Default: {}
let g:ycm_filter_diagnostics = {
\ "java": {
\ "regex": [ ".*taco.*", ... ],
\ "level": "error",
\ ...
\ }
\ }
g:ycm_always_populate_location_list
option
The When this option is set, YCM will populate the location list automatically every time it gets new diagnostic data. This option is off by default so as not to interfere with other data you might have placed in the location list.
See :help location-list
in Vim to learn more about the location list.
This option is part of the Syntastic compatibility layer; if the option is not
set, YCM will fall back to the value of the
g:syntastic_always_populate_loc_list
option before using this option's
default.
Default: 0
let g:ycm_always_populate_location_list = 0
g:ycm_open_loclist_on_ycm_diags
option
The When this option is set, :YcmDiags
will automatically open the location list
after forcing a compilation and filling the list with diagnostic data.
See :help location-list
in Vim to learn more about the location list.
Default: 1
let g:ycm_open_loclist_on_ycm_diags = 1
g:ycm_complete_in_comments
option
The When this option is set to 1
, YCM will show the completion menu even when
typing inside comments.
Default: 0
let g:ycm_complete_in_comments = 0
g:ycm_complete_in_strings
option
The When this option is set to 1
, YCM will show the completion menu even when
typing inside strings.
Note that this is turned on by default so that you can use the filename
completion inside strings. This is very useful for instance in C-family files
where typing #include "
will trigger the start of filename completion. If you
turn off this option, you will turn off filename completion in such situations
as well.
Default: 1
let g:ycm_complete_in_strings = 1
g:ycm_collect_identifiers_from_comments_and_strings
option
The When this option is set to 1
, YCM's identifier completer will also collect
identifiers from strings and comments. Otherwise, the text in comments and
strings will be ignored.
Default: 0
let g:ycm_collect_identifiers_from_comments_and_strings = 0
g:ycm_collect_identifiers_from_tags_files
option
The When this option is set to 1
, YCM's identifier completer will also collect
identifiers from tags files. The list of tags files to examine is retrieved from
the tagfiles()
Vim function which examines the tags
Vim option. See :h 'tags'
for details.
YCM will re-index your tags files if it detects that they have been modified.
The only supported tag format is the Exuberant Ctags format. The
format from "plain" ctags is NOT supported. Ctags needs to be called with the
--fields=+l
option (that's a lowercase L
, not a one) because YCM needs the
language:<lang>
field in the tags output.
See the FAQ for pointers if YCM does not appear to read your tag files.
This option is off by default because it makes Vim slower if your tags are on a network directory.
Default: 0
let g:ycm_collect_identifiers_from_tags_files = 0
g:ycm_seed_identifiers_with_syntax
option
The When this option is set to 1
, YCM's identifier completer will seed its
identifier database with the keywords of the programming language you're
writing.
Since the keywords are extracted from the Vim syntax file for the filetype, all keywords may not be collected, depending on how the syntax file was written. Usually at least 95% of the keywords are successfully extracted.
Default: 0
let g:ycm_seed_identifiers_with_syntax = 0
g:ycm_extra_conf_vim_data
option
The If you're using semantic completion for C-family files, this option might come
handy; it's a way of sending data from Vim to your Settings
function in
your .ycm_extra_conf.py
file.
This option is supposed to be a list of VimScript expression strings that are
evaluated for every request to the ycmd server and then passed to your
Settings
function as a client_data
keyword argument.
For instance, if you set this option to ['v:version']
, your Settings
function will be called like this:
# The '801' value is of course contingent on Vim 8.1; in 8.0 it would be '800'
Settings( ..., client_data = { 'v:version': 801 } )
So the client_data
parameter is a dictionary mapping Vim expression strings to
their values at the time of the request.
The correct way to define parameters for your Settings
function:
def Settings( **kwargs ):
You can then get to client_data
with kwargs['client_data']
.
Default: []
let g:ycm_extra_conf_vim_data = []
g:ycm_server_python_interpreter
option
The YCM will by default search for an appropriate Python interpreter on your system. You can use this option to override that behavior and force the use of a specific interpreter of your choosing.
NOTE: This interpreter is only used for the ycmd server. The YCM client running inside Vim always uses the Python interpreter that's embedded inside Vim.
Default: ''
let g:ycm_server_python_interpreter = ''
g:ycm_keep_logfiles
option
The When this option is set to 1
, YCM and the ycmd completion server will
keep the logfiles around after shutting down (they are deleted on shutdown by
default).
To see where the logfiles are, call :YcmDebugInfo
.
Default: 0
let g:ycm_keep_logfiles = 0
g:ycm_log_level
option
The The logging level that YCM and the ycmd completion server use. Valid values are the following, from most verbose to least verbose:
debug
info
warning
error
critical
Note that debug
is very verbose.
Default: info
let g:ycm_log_level = 'info'
g:ycm_auto_start_csharp_server
option
The When set to 1
, the OmniSharp-Roslyn server will be automatically started
(once per Vim session) when you open a C# file.
Default: 1
let g:ycm_auto_start_csharp_server = 1
g:ycm_auto_stop_csharp_server
option
The When set to 1
, the OmniSharp-Roslyn server will be automatically stopped upon
closing Vim.
Default: 1
let g:ycm_auto_stop_csharp_server = 1
g:ycm_csharp_server_port
option
The When g:ycm_auto_start_csharp_server is set to 1
, specifies the port for
the OmniSharp-Roslyn server to listen on. When set to 0
uses an unused port provided
by the OS.
Default: 0
let g:ycm_csharp_server_port = 0
g:ycm_csharp_insert_namespace_expr
option
The By default, when YCM inserts a namespace, it will insert the using
statement
under the nearest using
statement. You may prefer that the using
statement is
inserted somewhere, for example, to preserve sorting. If so, you can set this
option to override this behavior.
When this option is set, instead of inserting the using
statement itself, YCM
will set the global variable g:ycm_namespace_to_insert
to the namespace to
insert, and then evaluate this option's value as an expression. The option's
expression is responsible for inserting the namespace - the default insertion
will not occur.
Default: ''
let g:ycm_csharp_insert_namespace_expr = ''
g:ycm_add_preview_to_completeopt
option
The When this option is set to 1
, YCM will add the preview
string to Vim's
completeopt
option (see :h completeopt
). If your completeopt
option
already has preview
set, there will be no effect. You can see the current
state of your completeopt
setting with :set completeopt?
(yes, the question
mark is important).
When preview
is present in completeopt
, YCM will use the preview
window at
the top of the file to store detailed information about the current completion
candidate (but only if the candidate came from the semantic engine). For
instance, it would show the full function prototype and all the function
overloads in the window if the current completion is a function name.
Default: 0
let g:ycm_add_preview_to_completeopt = 0
g:ycm_autoclose_preview_window_after_completion
option
The When this option is set to 1
, YCM will auto-close the preview
window after
the user accepts the offered completion string. If there is no preview
window
triggered because there is no preview
string in completeopt
, this option is
irrelevant. See the g:ycm_add_preview_to_completeopt
option for more details.
Default: 0
let g:ycm_autoclose_preview_window_after_completion = 0
g:ycm_autoclose_preview_window_after_insertion
option
The When this option is set to 1
, YCM will auto-close the preview
window after
the user leaves insert mode. This option is irrelevant if
g:ycm_autoclose_preview_window_after_completion
is set or if no preview
window is triggered. See the g:ycm_add_preview_to_completeopt
option for more
details.
Default: 0
let g:ycm_autoclose_preview_window_after_insertion = 0
g:ycm_max_diagnostics_to_display
option
The This option controls the maximum number of diagnostics shown to the user when errors or warnings are detected in the file. This option is only relevant for the C-family, C#, Java, JavaScript, and TypeScript languages.
A special value of 0
means there is no limit.
Default: 30
let g:ycm_max_diagnostics_to_display = 30
g:ycm_key_list_select_completion
option
The This option controls the key mappings used to select the first completion string. Invoking any of them repeatedly cycles forward through the completion list.
Some users like adding <Enter>
to this list.
Default: ['<TAB>', '<Down>']
let g:ycm_key_list_select_completion = ['<TAB>', '<Down>']
g:ycm_key_list_previous_completion
option
The This option controls the key mappings used to select the previous completion string. Invoking any of them repeatedly cycles backwards through the completion list.
Note that one of the defaults is <S-TAB>
which means Shift-TAB. That mapping
will probably only work in GUI Vim (Gvim or MacVim) and not in plain console Vim
because the terminal usually does not forward modifier key combinations to Vim.
Default: ['<S-TAB>', '<Up>']
let g:ycm_key_list_previous_completion = ['<S-TAB>', '<Up>']
g:ycm_key_list_stop_completion
option
The This option controls the key mappings used to close the completion menu. This is
useful when the menu is blocking the view, when you need to insert the <TAB>
character, or when you want to expand a snippet from UltiSnips and navigate
through it.
Default: ['<C-y>']
let g:ycm_key_list_stop_completion = ['<C-y>']
g:ycm_key_invoke_completion
option
The This option controls the key mapping used to invoke the completion menu for
semantic completion. By default, semantic completion is triggered automatically
after typing .
, ->
and ::
in insert mode (if semantic completion support
has been compiled in). This key mapping can be used to trigger semantic
completion anywhere. Useful for searching for top-level functions and classes.
Console Vim (not Gvim or MacVim) passes <Nul>
to Vim when the user types
<C-Space>
so YCM will make sure that <Nul>
is used in the map command when
you're editing in console Vim, and <C-Space>
in GUI Vim. This means that you
can just press <C-Space>
in both console and GUI Vim and YCM will do the right
thing.
Setting this option to an empty string will make sure no mapping is created.
Default: <C-Space>
let g:ycm_key_invoke_completion = '<C-Space>'
g:ycm_key_detailed_diagnostics
option
The This option controls the key mapping used to show the full diagnostic text when
the user's cursor is on the line with the diagnostic. It basically calls
:YcmShowDetailedDiagnostic
.
Setting this option to an empty string will make sure no mapping is created.
Default: <leader>d
let g:ycm_key_detailed_diagnostics = '<leader>d'
g:ycm_global_ycm_extra_conf
option
The Normally, YCM searches for a .ycm_extra_conf.py
file for compilation flags
(see the User Guide for more details on how this works). This option specifies
a fallback path to a config file which is used if no .ycm_extra_conf.py
is
found.
You can place such a global file anywhere in your filesystem.
Default: ''
let g:ycm_global_ycm_extra_conf = ''
g:ycm_confirm_extra_conf
option
The When this option is set to 1
YCM will ask once per .ycm_extra_conf.py
file
if it is safe to be loaded. This is to prevent execution of malicious code
from a .ycm_extra_conf.py
file you didn't write.
To selectively get YCM to ask/not ask about loading certain .ycm_extra_conf.py
files, see the g:ycm_extra_conf_globlist
option.
Default: 1
let g:ycm_confirm_extra_conf = 1
g:ycm_extra_conf_globlist
option
The This option is a list that may contain several globbing patterns. If a pattern
starts with a !
all .ycm_extra_conf.py
files matching that pattern will be
blacklisted, that is they won't be loaded and no confirmation dialog will be
shown. If a pattern does not start with a !
all files matching that pattern
will be whitelisted. Note that this option is not used when confirmation is
disabled using g:ycm_confirm_extra_conf
and that items earlier in the list
will take precedence over the later ones.
Rules:
*
matches everything?
matches any single character[seq]
matches any character in seq[!seq]
matches any char not in seq
Example:
let g:ycm_extra_conf_globlist = ['~/dev/*','!~/*']
- The first rule will match everything contained in the
~/dev
directory so.ycm_extra_conf.py
files from there will be loaded. - The second rule will match everything in the home directory so a
.ycm_extra_conf.py
file from there won't be loaded. - As the first rule takes precedence everything in the home directory excluding
the
~/dev
directory will be blacklisted.
NOTE: The glob pattern is first expanded with Python's
os.path.expanduser()
and then resolved with os.path.abspath()
before being
matched against the filename.
Default: []
let g:ycm_extra_conf_globlist = []
g:ycm_filepath_completion_use_working_dir
option
The By default, YCM's filepath completion will interpret relative paths like ../
as being relative to the folder of the file of the currently active buffer.
Setting this option will force YCM to always interpret relative paths as being
relative to Vim's current working directory.
Default: 0
let g:ycm_filepath_completion_use_working_dir = 0
g:ycm_semantic_triggers
option
The This option controls the character-based triggers for the various semantic completion engines. The option holds a dictionary of key-values, where the keys are Vim's filetype strings delimited by commas and values are lists of strings, where the strings are the triggers.
Setting key-value pairs on the dictionary adds semantic triggers to the internal default set (listed below). You cannot remove the default triggers, only add new ones.
A "trigger" is a sequence of one or more characters that trigger semantic
completion when typed. For instance, C++ (cpp
filetype) has .
listed as a
trigger. So when the user types foo.
, the semantic engine will trigger and
serve foo
's list of member functions and variables. Since C++ also has ->
listed as a trigger, the same thing would happen when the user typed foo->
.
It's also possible to use a regular expression as a trigger. You have to prefix
your trigger with re!
to signify it's a regex trigger. For instance,
re!\w+\.
would only trigger after the \w+\.
regex matches.
NOTE: The regex syntax is NOT Vim's, it's Python's.
Default: [see next line]
let g:ycm_semantic_triggers = {
\ 'c': ['->', '.'],
\ 'objc': ['->', '.', 're!\[[_a-zA-Z]+\w*\s', 're!^\s*[^\W\d]\w*\s',
\ 're!\[.*\]\s'],
\ 'ocaml': ['.', '#'],
\ 'cpp,cuda,objcpp': ['->', '.', '::'],
\ 'perl': ['->'],
\ 'php': ['->', '::'],
\ 'cs,d,elixir,go,groovy,java,javascript,julia,perl6,python,scala,typescript,vb': ['.'],
\ 'ruby,rust': ['.', '::'],
\ 'lua': ['.', ':'],
\ 'erlang': [':'],
\ }
g:ycm_cache_omnifunc
option
The Some omnicompletion engines do not work well with the YCM cache—in particular, they might not produce all possible results for a given prefix. By unsetting this option you can ensure that the omnicompletion engine is re-queried on every keypress. That will ensure all completions will be presented, but might cause stuttering and lagginess if the omnifunc is slow.
Default: 1
let g:ycm_cache_omnifunc = 1
g:ycm_use_ultisnips_completer
option
The By default, YCM will query the UltiSnips plugin for possible completions of snippet triggers. This option can turn that behavior off.
Default: 1
let g:ycm_use_ultisnips_completer = 1
g:ycm_goto_buffer_command
option
The Defines where GoTo*
commands result should be opened. Can take one of the
following values: 'same-buffer'
, 'split'
, or 'split-or-existing-window'
.
If this option is set to the 'same-buffer'
but current buffer can not be
switched (when buffer is modified and nohidden
option is set), then result
will be opened in a split. When the option is set to
'split-or-existing-window'
, if the result is already open in a window of the
current tab page (or any tab pages with the :tab
modifier; see below), it will
jump to that window. Otherwise, the result will be opened in a split as if the
option was set to 'split'
.
To customize the way a new window is split, prefix the GoTo*
command with one
of the following modifiers: :aboveleft
, :belowright
, :botright
,
:leftabove
, :rightbelow
, :topleft
, and :vertical
. For instance, to
split vertically to the right of the current window, run the command:
:rightbelow vertical YcmCompleter GoTo
To open in a new tab page, use the :tab
modifier with the 'split'
or
'split-or-existing-window'
options e.g.:
:tab YcmCompleter GoTo
NOTE: command modifiers were added in Vim 7.4.1898. If you are using an
older version, you can still configure this by setting the option to one of the
deprecated values: 'vertical-split'
, 'new-tab'
, or 'new-or-existing-tab'
.
Default: 'same-buffer'
let g:ycm_goto_buffer_command = 'same-buffer'
g:ycm_disable_for_files_larger_than_kb
option
The Defines the max size (in Kb) for a file to be considered for completion. If this option is set to 0 then no check is made on the size of the file you're opening.
Default: 1000
let g:ycm_disable_for_files_larger_than_kb = 1000
g:ycm_use_clangd
option
The This option controls whether clangd should be used as completion engine for
C-family languages. Can take one of the following values: 1
, 0
, with
meanings:
1
: YCM will use clangd if clangd binary exists in third party or it was provided withycm_clangd_binary_path
option.0
: YCM will never use clangd completer.
Default: 1
let g:ycm_use_clangd = 1
g:ycm_clangd_binary_path
option
The When ycm_use_clangd
option is set to 1
, this option sets the path to
clangd binary.
Default: ''
let g:ycm_clangd_binary_path = ''
g:ycm_clangd_args
option
The This option controls the command line arguments passed to the clangd binary. It appends new options and overrides the existing ones.
Default: []
let g:ycm_clangd_args = []
g:ycm_clangd_uses_ycmd_caching
option
The This option controls which ranking and filtering algorithm to use for completion items. It can take values:
1
: Uses ycmd's caching and filtering logic.0
: Uses clangd's caching and filtering logic.
Default: 1
let g:ycm_clangd_uses_ycmd_caching = 1
g:ycm_language_server
option
The This option lets YCM use an arbitrary LSP server, not unlike coc.nvim and others. However, the officially supported completers are favoured over custom LSP ones, so overriding an existing completer means first making sure YCM won't choose that existing completer in the first place.
A simple working example of this option can be found in the section called "Semantic Completion for Other Languages".
Default: []
let g:ycm_language_server = []
g:ycm_disable_signature_help
option
The This option allows you to disable all signature help for all completion engines. There is no way to disable it per-completer. This option is reserved, meaning that while signature help support remains experimental, its values and meaning may change and it may be removed in a future version.
Default: 0
" Disable signature help
let g:ycm_disable_signature_help = 1
FAQ
The FAQ section has been moved to the wiki.
Contributor Code of Conduct
Please note that this project is released with a Contributor Code of Conduct. By participating in this project you agree to abide by its terms.
Contact
If you have questions about the plugin or need help, please join the Gitter room or use the ycm-users mailing list.
If you have bug reports or feature suggestions, please use the issue tracker. Before you do, please carefully read CONTRIBUTING.md as this asks for important diagnostics which the team will use to help get you going.
The latest version of the plugin is available at https://ycm-core.github.io/YouCompleteMe/.
The author's homepage is https://val.markovic.io.
Please do NOT go to #vim on freenode for support. Please contact the YouCompleteMe maintainers directly using the contact details.
License
This software is licensed under the GPL v3 license. © 2015-2018 YouCompleteMe contributors