Re: In vim, how to tell which version of a syntax file is being used?

On 16.02.2025 02:25, Kenny McCormack wrote:

In article <vor4g5$7l11$1@dont-email.me>,
Janis Papanagnou  <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> wrote:

On 15.02.2025 17:27, Kenny McCormack wrote:

Overall problem: I'm trying to debug a problem in the syntax highlighting
of a particular shell script.
>
I want to know if there is some variable that is set by the syntax
apparatus that tells me either or both of:
>
    1) What version of sh.vim was used?
    2) The full path of the used sh.vim file?
>

>
If in doubt I'm inspecting (according to :help) what Vim shows me
when I'm typing ':set rtp'. There's a couple directories and mine
shows (for and on a Unix system) '/usr/share/vim/vim73' so my 'sh'
default syntax file would be '/usr/share/vim/vim73/syntax/sh.vim'.
>
But there's more directories shown in that path list that appear
before the '/usr/share' path, and I have also a local directory
'~/.vim/after/syntax/sh/...' where some changes to the default
behavior for 'sh' are defined.

 
Right.  I am familiar with all that.
 
But (IMNSHO, of course) those all fit in the "kludgey workarounds" category.
I mean, they are indirect ways of coming to an approximation of the truth.
 
What I really want (and my reason for posting this thread) is to know if
there is a direct (not directory) way to actually get the information, not
an approximation.
 
Isn't there some kind of "verbose mode" that makes VIM tell you every file
it sources (as it is sourcing it)?  That would be closer to the truth, but
still not ideal.
 
Incidentally, I did put a sh.vim in my locatel syntax directory, and was
able to conclude, using inotifywait, that it was being sourced when a shell
script as loaded in vim.  But that also is in the "approximation" category.

Hmm.., you were speaking about "an approximation of the truth".

Well, in physics generally, and specifically in software, everything is
sort of indirect (and even affected by user interaction). Even if Vim
would provide a "verbose debug" option that would not be a guaranteed.
So I'm not sure how much "direct" you intend, what level you dismiss,
and what you'd accept. - For me the built-in paths would be reliable
enough. Since no more certainty seems to be natively supported by Vim
you'd either have to resort to such "workarounds"; since you mentioned
'inotifywait' I'd add 'strace' to that and look for the 'open()' calls.
But maybe you prefer to inspect the Vim source code - but that appears
complicated -, or add a diagnostic message in a self-compiled version?
You see, it can be simple or arbitrary complex. - It depends on your
demands - can you be more specific here? - and your grade of interest
or paranoia. :-)

Janis