Better syntax highlighting for CLIPS in vim in Ubuntu

README.md

Slightly better syntax highlighting for CLIPS in vim (in Ubuntu)

Problem

Syntax highlighting is so-so for .clp files. vim, my favorite code editor, detects these filetypes as jess, an unmaintained Rules Engine with a similar syntax to CLIPS.

Adding the jess.vim file to ~/.vim/after/syntax/ and the default.vim file to ~/.vim/colors in your Ubuntu system will provide slightly better highlighting when editing CLIPS files for the following:

1. expand$ variables in LHS
2. & (and) and | (or) symbols in LHS
3. - and + as characters in variable names
4. escape characters in double quoted strings
5. TRUE and FALSE are bolded and have a slightly brighter color

default.vim

hi Boolean guifg=#ffffff gui=bold ctermfg=255 cterm=bold

jess.vim

syn region      jessString          start=+"+     end=+"+ skip=+\\.+                                                                                 
syn region      jessVar             start="$?\|?" end="[^a-zA-Z0-9+-]"me=e-1                                                                         
syn match       jessBarSymbol       "|"             contained                                                                              
syn match       jessAmpersandSymbol "&"             contained
syn match       jessTildeSymbol     "\~"            contained                                                                              
syn match       jessBooleanSymbol   /\<\(TRUE\|FALSE\)\>/                                                                          
syn region      jessList            matchgroup=Delimiter start="("  skip="|.\{-}|" matchgroup=Delimiter end=")" contains=jessAtom,jessBQList,jessConcat,jessDeclaration,jessList,jessNumber,jessSymbol,jessSpecial,jessFunc,jessKey,jessAtomMark,jessString,jessComment,jessBarSymbol,jessAtomBarSymbol,jessVar,jessAmpersandSymbol,jessTildeSymbol,jessBooleanSymbol                                                            
syn region      jessBQList          matchgroup=PreProc   start="`(" skip="|.\{-}|" matchgroup=PreProc   end=")" contains=jessAtom,jessBQList,jessConcat,jessDeclaration,jessList,jessNumber,jessSpecial,jessSymbol,jessFunc,jessKey,jessVar,jessAtomMark,jessString,jessComment,jessBarSymbol,jessAtomBarSymbol,jessTildeSymbol,jessBooleanSymbol                                                                        
hi def link     jessAmpersandSymbol Special                                                                                                
hi def link     jessTildeSymbol     Special                                                                                                
hi def link     jessBooleanSymbol   Boolean