How to load different .vimrc file for different working directory?

Question

I have different option for each working directory. I don't want to set these options every time I work. I know I can append vimrc file for the options but I don't want to use the same configuration in every directory. How can I do with this situation?

Example:

For javascript project, I want to load settings from ~/.vimrc_js

For Python project, I want to load settings from ~/.vimrc_py

Answer 1

If each project uses a distinct language, the built-in filetype plugin (ftplugin) mechanism, as described by Jamie Schembri, will work just fine. If you really need different settings for the same type of files, read on:

Central configuration

If it's okay to configure the local exceptions centrally, you can put such autocmds into your ~/.vimrc:

:autocmd BufRead,BufNewFile /path/to/dir/* setlocal ts=4 sw=4 

On the other hand, if you want the specific configuration stored with the project (and don't want to embed this in all files via modelines), you have the following two options:

Local config with built-in functionality

If you always start Vim from the project root directory, the built-in

:set exrc 

enables the reading of a .vimrc file from the current directory. You can place the :set ts=4 sw=4 commands in there.

Local config through plugin

Otherwise, you need the help of a plugin; there are several on vim.org; I can recommend the localrc plugin, which even allows local filetype-specific configuration.

^{Note that reading configuration from the file system has security implications; you may want to :set secure.}

Answer 2

Filetype Plugin

This is what you're probably looking for, and is a very neat approach. You'll need to set filetype plugin on in your vimrc to get this to work. A file must then be created at ~/.vim/ftplugin/<language>.vim which will be loaded automatically for any buffers using that language.

For example, instead of writing your JavaScript settings to ~/.vimrc_js, write them to ~/.vim/ftplugin/javascript.vim.

Autocmd

autocmd is the simplest way to set something on a language-specific basis:

autocmd Filetype <language> <setting> 

This goes directly in your vimrc and will load settings for a specified filetype only.

To enable spellcheck across various text files, for example, one could use:

autocmd FileType markdown,tex,textile setlocal spell 

You can set multiple settings at once by separating them with a pipe, those this quickly becomes unwieldy:

autocmd FileType php setlocal shiftwidth=4 tabstop=4|let php_sql_query=1 

AutoCMD + Source

On rare occasions you might have enough settings to warrant a separate file, but would like to load them for multiple languages. Using filetype plugins, you'll end up with duplicate files or symlinks.

A simple alternative is to fall back to autocmd, but instead of writing the settings in one big line, you can instead source a file. For example:

autocmd FileType markdown,tex,textile source ~/.vim/lang_settings/text.vim