ce supports the EditorConfig standard. At startup, it reads .editorconfig files according to the standard, and sets certain properties for a buffer based on the filename associated with the buffer, and whether there exist sections of .editorconfig file(s) that match that filename.

ce does not re-read .editorconfig files if they change during an editing session. You must restart ce to force it to re-read those files.

ce recognizes the following properties:

Supported Properties

tab_width: if this is set, it specifies the number of spaces represented by a tab. This affects the on-screen display of tabs. If ce cannot find a value for tab_width, it uses the default value of 8. You can overwrite this value on a per-buffer basis by using the set-tab-size command (bound to M-Tab).

indent_size: if this is set, it specifies the number of columns that the indentation commands (only ruby-indent for now) use to add or subtract a level of indentation to a line. If ce cannot find a value for indent_size, it uses the default value of 2.

indent_style: if this is set to tab, indentation commands (only ruby-indent for now) use a combination of tabs and spaces to achieve indentation. If it is set to space, only spaces are used for indentation. If ce cannot find a value for indent_style, it uses the default value of tab.

insert_final_newline: if this is set to true, when saving a file ce will ask the user if a newline should be added to the end of the file if one does not already exist. If ce cannot find a value for insert_final_newline, it uses the default value of true.

trim_trailing_whitespace: if this is set to true, when saving a file ce will remove trailing whitespace from each line. If ce cannot find a value for trim_trailing_whitespace, it uses the default value of false. This property should be used with care, because in some file formats, such as Markdown, trailing whitespace can have specific intended meaning.

end_of_line: if this is set, it defines what character(s) ce will use as the line separator when loading or saving files. If it is set to lf, the ASCII linefeed character is the line separator. If it is set to crlf, the ASCII carriage return/linefeed combo is the line separator. If it is set to cr, the ASCII carriage return character is the line separator. If ce cannot find a value for end_of_line, it uses the default value of lf.

charset: if this is set, it defines the character set that ce uses when loading or saving files. The supported character sets are latin1, utf-8, utf-16be, and utf-16le. If the value is any other character set, or if ce cannot find a value for charset, it uses the default value of utf-8. (Internally, ce uses the utf-8 character set, and converts from/to the specified character set when loading or saving files.)

spelling_language: if this is set, specifies the language that should be used for spell checking (e.g., fr for French). ce uses aspell for spell checking, so you should also install the desired aspell-LANG package.

ce ignores any other properties that it finds in .editorconfig files.

Example

Here is the .editorconfig file that I use for Crystal projects:

root = true

[*.cr]
charset = utf-8
end_of_line = lf
insert_final_newline = true
indent_style = tab
indent_size = 2
trim_trailing_whitespace = true
tab_width = 8

This config file applies only to files matching the pattern *.cr in the current directory or any of its subdirectories. For each matching file:

• The character set is utf-8.
• The line separator character is a linefeed.
• The indentation size is set to 2 characters.
• Indentation uses tabs.
• The tab size is 8 characters.
• When saving the file, ce will ask the user if a newline needs to be added to the last line if a newline is not present, and it will trim trailing whitespace from each line.
• No spelling language is specified.