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What is the correct name of the Vim scripting language? I see it being called VimScript, Vim script and even VimL.

VimL is even listed on GitHub as the 10th most popular programming language! What is the history behind the VimL name? Why are the Git folks calling it VimL?

Xavier T.
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Ashwin Nanjappa
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  • I noticed on GitHub that "vimL" and "VimScript" are both names for languages that your repository can be written in. In other words, for a given file, GitHub may think that file is written in vimL, or it could label it as being written in vimscript. It's possible older files or repositories are vimscript, but any newer ones are always labeled as vimL. – trysis Sep 14 '17 at 19:45

4 Answers4

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After grepping through official documentation, it seems that "Vim script" is the "most" official name since nowhere is "VimScript" mentioned in regular sentences. GetLatestVimScripts is often mentioned, but this is a script name where no underlines are allowed.

I'd guess VimL is just an abbreviation for Vim Language (Vim script). It was probably coined some time ago and became used at few places, but it's not official.

darioo
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    I don't think "Vim script" could ever be an official name, because it's not grammatically a "proper name" at all. Proper names have all words capitalized, as in "Vim Script". See, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proper_name It doesn't make sense to say, "A Vim script is written in Vim script." But it does make sense to say "A Vim script is written in Vim Script." Having said all that, I would vote for VimL, which is also the name github uses for the language. – Herbert Sitz Dec 09 '10 at 17:22
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    It would be interesting if there was a consensus around "VimL" to appropriately tag question on StackOverflow. – Xavier T. Dec 09 '10 at 19:36
  • VimL seems somewhat confusing to me as it is similar to a name of some markup language. – jira Dec 10 '10 at 00:16
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    "VimL" is a recent construction, but it's handy. It is nearly impossible to Google for "vim script" and find anything related to programming in Vim's internal language. "VimL" is unambiguous, and even though it's new and turns up few search results, at least they're what you want. Any search for "Vim script" will be 95% false positives, involving people writing shell/Ruby/Perl/Python "scripts" using Vim. Using "vimscript" (one word) sometimes helps, but it's still hard. So while VimL is not official, I certainly hope it spreads to make searching easier. – Jim Stewart Apr 05 '13 at 22:43
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This explains all terms used:

Vim’s built-in scripting language, VimL. This language is also known as Vimscript. Depending on how you look at it, either VimL is an alternate name for Vimscript or Vimscript is an alternate name for VimL.

Actually, there’s no real official name for the language; the closest seems to be the two-word “Vim script.” To better follow English naming conventions, this is usually altered to “Vimscript,” or more rarely, “Vim Script”—but all of this can be confusing, since the files which store code in this language are themselves called “Vim scripts.”

The relatively new name “VimL” (“Vim Language”) has been gaining in popularity in rough correlation with the growth of the code-sharing site GitHub. Its use is a matter of preference, but I do find it more easily distinguishable from mentions of Vim scripts or of writing generic scripts using Vim (in search results, for instance).

Read more - https://pragprog.com/book/bkviml/the-viml-primer

Community
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Roy Ling
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:h usr_41.txt says Vim script language for the language, and Vim script(s) for ..., well, scripts.

The abbreviation VimL sounds more correct to me.

Luc Hermitte
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Notice, that most of the opinions here suggesting VimL come from personal preference, observations of community behavior or references from good but still unofficial books. The truth is, whether we like it or not, and even when grammatical incorrect, the official name should be the one picked and used by Vim's original author, Bram Moolenaar; and he seems to always use Vim script.

For e.g. look at it being referred to as "Vim script" in the readme for his Vim9 repo — https://github.com/brammool/vim9

Sri Kadimisetty
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