Vim: Change syntax highlight on-demand

Question

I have some HTML files with arbitrary extension.

I would like to know if it's possible to order vim to change the highlight with a command.

Thanks.

Answer 1

You can force syntax highlighting for a language by setting syntax:

:set syntax=html

If you'd also like to load filetype-specific settings, you should set filetype instead. This is probably what you want:

:set filetype=html

Since you mention you're editing more than one such file, you can automatically set the filetype for a given extension using autocmd:

:autocmd BufRead,BufNewFile *.<extension> setlocal filetype=html

You can also have this persist into future sessions by placing it in your vimrc.

Answer 2

Do you want just to tell vim that the file you are editing is written in html? Use a command :set filetype=html or just :set ft=html.