# Vim documentation: pi_paren

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    *pi_paren.txt*	For Vim version 9.2.  Last change: 2026 Feb 14

    		  VIM REFERENCE MANUAL	  by Bram Moolenaar

    Highlighting matching parens			*matchparen*

    The functionality mentioned here is a |standard-plugin|.
    This plugin is only available if 'compatible' is not set.

    You can avoid loading this plugin by setting the "loaded_matchparen" variable:

    	:let loaded_matchparen = 1

    The plugin installs CursorMoved, CursorMovedI and WinEnter autocommands to
    redefine the match highlighting.

    					*:NoMatchParen* *:DoMatchParen*
    To disable the plugin after it was loaded use this command:

    	:NoMatchParen

    And to enable it again:

    	:DoMatchParen

    The highlighting used is MatchParen.  You can specify different colors with
    the ":highlight" command.  Example:

    	:hi MatchParen ctermbg=blue guibg=lightblue

    By default the plugin will highlight both the paren under the cursor and the
    matching one using the |hl-MatchParen| highlighting group.  This may result in
    the cursor briefly disappearing from the screen as the MatchParen colors take
    over the cursor highlight.  To prevent this from happening and have the plugin
    only highlight the matching paren and not the one under the cursor
    (effectively leaving the cursor style unchanged), you can set the
    "matchparen_disable_cursor_hl" variable:

    	:let matchparen_disable_cursor_hl = 1

    The characters to be matched come from the 'matchpairs' option.  You can
    change the value to highlight different matches.  Note that not everything is
    possible.  For example, you can't highlight single or double quotes, because
    the start and end are equal.

    The syntax highlighting attributes are used.  When the cursor currently is not
    in a string or comment syntax item, then matches inside string and comment
    syntax items are ignored.  Any syntax items with "string" or "comment"
    somewhere in their name are considered string or comment items.

    The search is limited to avoid a delay when moving the cursor.  The limits
    are:
    - What is visible in the window.
    - 100 lines above or below the cursor to avoid a long delay when there are
      closed folds.
    - 'synmaxcol' times 2 bytes before or after the cursor to avoid a delay
      in a long line with syntax highlighting.
    - A timeout of 300 msec (60 msec in Insert mode).  This can be changed with
      the "g:matchparen_timeout" and "g:matchparen_insert_timeout" variables and
      their buffer-local equivalents "b:matchparen_timeout" and
      "b:matchparen_insert_timeout".

    If you would like the |%| command to work better, the matchit plugin can be
    used, see |matchit-install|.  This plugin also helps to skip matches in
    comments.  This is unrelated to the matchparen highlighting, they use a
    different mechanism.

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