log-highlight.nvim

A simple and lightweight Neovim plugin that brings syntax highlighting to generic log files and provides straightforward configuration to manage filetype detection rules for your logs.

Installation

Use your favorite plugin manager to install the plugin.

lazy.nvim

{
    'fei6409/log-highlight.nvim',
    opts = {},
},

vim-plug

Plug 'fei6409/log-highlight.nvim'

Don't forget to add syntax on in your .vimrc, init.vim, or init.lua to enable syntax highlighting.

Configuration

Neovim

This plugin uses Neovim's built-in filetype detection mechanism.

By default, the log filetype is applied to files with a .log extension (e.g., sys.log) after setup.

You can customize the filetype detection patterns as follows:

require('log-highlight').setup {
    ---@type string|string[]
    -- File extensions
    extension = 'log',

    ---@type string|string[]
    -- File names or full file paths
    filename = {
        'syslog',
    },

    ---@type string|string[]
    -- File path glob patterns
    -- Note: In Lua, `%` escapes special characters to match them literally.
    pattern = {
        '%/var%/log%/.*',
        'console%-ramoops.*',
        'log.*%.txt',
        'logcat.*',
    },
}

Vim

By default, the log filetype is applied to files matching *.log or *_log.

To add custom patterns, add autocommands to your .vimrc like this:

" Example:
autocmd BufNewFile,BufRead /var/log/* set filetype=log

Release Notes

• v1.0.1: Support lowercase and spdlog-style log levels
• v1.0.0: Minor cleanup and official release
• v0.0.2: More supports for HDL
• v0.0.1: Initial release

Contributing

Bug reports, feature requests, and pull requests are welcome. When opening an issue or PR, please consider attaching a snippet of the relevant log pattern.

If you are submitting a pull request, please also consider adding new log samples to the samples/ directory:

• For atomic patterns or small snippets, add them to patterns.log.
• For longer, real-world log examples, create a new file.

This helps verify that new changes do not break existing syntax highlighting.

Acknowledgements

• vim-log-highlighting by MTDL9
• Built-in messages.vim

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.