meaning of ^I in vim and how to not show them?

Question

Since I have :set list in Vim, I often see strange ^I characters in the beginning of some C-files. Are these the listchars for tabs or what do they mean? How can I transfer that back to normal? I just want to see end-of-line characters.

Answer 1

They're tabs. By default, VIM shows all control characers other than EOL as ^n where n is the character of the alphabet corresponding to the character being shown (tab = char #9, I = 9th char in alphabet). To stop showing them, use :set nolist, but that will turn off EOL display as well.

If you want to see end-of-line chars but not tabs, you can use listchars for that. Use :help listchars for details, but roughly:

:set listchars=tab:\ \ ,eol:$

That says, when showing tabs, show a space for the first virtual space it occupies and a space for the subsequent ones; when showing EOLs, use a $. (Since tabs can span multiple virtual columns, you get to use two different chars, one for the first column, and one for the others.)

Answer 2

In addition to T.J. Crowder's answer, another option would be to make the tabs more pleasing to the eye:

set listchars=tab:▸\ ,eol:¬