Vim: apply settings on files in directory

You can put something like this in $VIM/vimrc

autocmd BufNewFile,BufRead /path/to/files/* set nowrap tabstop=4 shiftwidth=4

This question is old, but it seems like a pretty natural and persistent concern.

My solution is pretty simple. I place a .vimrc file in the root directory of my projects. The first line of the .vimrc file usually sources ~/.vimrc, and then adds the particular configuration I want. I alias tvim='vim -u .vimrc', and use tvim in my personal project directories. "tvim" for "trusted vim," meaning that if I execute it in a directory with a .vimrc file and something goes wrong, I've got no one to blame but myself, since I explicitly said I trusted it. Also, I keep a group of these stored away so that I can sometimes just softlink the one I want for a particular kind of project.

I'm an advocate of the plugin way. For several reasons:

• Modelines are particularly limited: we can't set variables (that tunes other (ft)plugins, like "should the braces of the for-snippet be on a newline ?"), or call function from them (I don't limit myself to coding standards, I also set the makefile to use depending on the current directory)
• DRY: with modelines, a setting needs to be repeated in every file, if there are too many things to set or tunings to change, it will quickly become difficult to maintain, moreover, it will require the use of a template-expander plugin (which you should consider if you have several vimmers in your project).
• Not every one uses vim to develop. I don't want to be bothered by other people editor settings, why should I parasite theirs?
• It's easier to ask vimmers to install a same plugin, instead of asking them to copy-paste, and maintain, the same lines in their .vimrc
• The settings can be saved with the other project files (cvs/svn/git/whatever)
• It's really easy to have a configuration file per project -- with the plugin, I have a global configuration file for the coding standards of the overall project, and specific configuration files for each sub-project (which makefile to use, which executable to call, ...)

BTW, sth's solution can be used to source a single configuration file. This is very similar to the plugin approach except the .vimrc has to be parasited with non global options, and it does not support easily multiple/shared configuration files.

I'd strongly suggest not using set exrc

Even with set secure, under *nix, vim will still run autocommands, shell, et al, if you own the file. So if you happend to edit a file in that tarball I sent you with a .vimrc containing:

autocmd BufEnter * :silent! !echo rm -rf ~/

you'll probably be less amused than I will.