Quickest Way to Revert Spaces to TABs in VIM

Question

VIM will automatically enable the TAB for a makefile, assuming you name it "makefile," as opposed to "Makefile." Not sure why VIM still doesn't detect the type with a lower-uppercase difference, but such is life. (@Sedrik)

That aside, other alternative solutions are:

Filetype Binding (@ThorstenS @tungd):

autocmd FileType make setlocal noexpandtab

RealTime Switch (@ThorstenS):

Assuming the .vimrc configuration mentioned in the question, do:

:set noet (to switch from spaces to TAB)

and :set et (to switch back)

Just use the magical escape key available in insert mode.

On the *NIX's it is ^V by default when you are in insert mode. On Windows, you need to find out what the magical escape character is - ^V is taken for something else; I think it may be ^Q or ^S?

So! In your makefile:

this: this.c
<C-V><Tab>cc this.c

where the usual meanings apply:

means hit ctrl-V (you should see a ^ hiding away under the cursor) - hit the tab key. Bingo.

Works for me.

Note: if you use vim settings or startup code which smashes tabs as you read a file, this obviously is a short-term fix. I prefer to learn how to use the retab command to ensure a file is tab-clean, because I don't like a file to be touched unless I consciously choose to do so.

Just type set noexpandtab . Perhaps you bind this to a function key.

Only this configuration helped me solve this problem.

filetype plugin indent on
filetype detect
autocmd FileType make set noexpandtab