I see <leader>
in many .vimrc
files, and I am wondering what does it mean?
What is it used for?
Just a general overview of the purpose and usage would be great.
The <Leader>
key is mapped to \ by default. So if you have a map of <Leader>t
, you can execute it by default with \+t. For more detail or re-assigning it using the mapleader
variable, see
:help leader
To define a mapping which uses the "mapleader" variable, the special string "<Leader>" can be used. It is replaced with the string value of "mapleader". If "mapleader" is not set or empty, a backslash is used instead. Example: :map <Leader>A oanother line <Esc> Works like: :map \A oanother line <Esc> But after: :let mapleader = "," It works like: :map ,A oanother line <Esc> Note that the value of "mapleader" is used at the moment the mapping is defined. Changing "mapleader" after that has no effect for already defined mappings.