The perfect Neovim setup for C++

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⚠️ NVChad has had some breaking changes, make sure to use the v2.0 branch if you're using this video. You can find the command below.
Commands:
NVChad Install line: git clone -b v2.0 github.com/NvChad/NvChad ~/.config/nvim --depth 1
Neovim has been the most loved editor for three years in a row, according to the stackoverflow developer survey.
In this video we look at setting up Neovim for C++ using NVChad, to create an editor experience worth loving.
This video was sponsored by Brilliant
Become a better developer in 4 minutes: bit.ly/45C7a29 👈
Join this channel to get access to perks:
/ @dreamsofcode
My socials:
Discord: / discord
Twitter: / dreamsofcode_io
My Equipment:
Coding: kit.co/dreamsofcode/coding
Audio: kit.co/dreamsofcode/voiceover
Video Links:
Final Config: github.com/dreamsofcode-io/ne...
NVChad: nvchad.com/
null-ls Sources: github.com/jose-elias-alvarez...
NVChad install line:
git clone github.com/NvChad/NvChad ~/.config/nvim --depth 1
00:00 Intro
00:15 Getting started
01:52 Autosuggestions
07:04 Autoformatting
10:31 Sponsor
11:50 Debugger

[@dreamsofcode]

To try everything Brilliant has to offer-free-for a full 30 days, visit brilliant.org/DreamsofCode . The first 200 of you will get 20% off Brilliant’s annual premium subscription.

[@fattoofittoo7907]

could you create Neovim setup for C?

[@michaelmueller9635]

Is there a way to get the value of vectors/objects while debugging? I got the feeling, that - except for primitive data types - it's really hard to use the debugger.

[@0xcoffee427]

@@fattoofittoo7907 for c also same or different ?

[@Padancyo]

Thank you very much for this in-depth explanation of how to setup NvChad for C++ development 🙂I am looking forward to the CMake setup!

[@zombiesalad2722]

Just when I was about to resume my old c++ project from a hiatus, you dropped this! What a great timing.

[@dreamsofcode]

I hope it helps!

[@JesusCastilloBenito]

Thanks you for all your work and dedication! I really wanted to use nvim as my IDE for a long time, but any configuration really convinced me or worked for me until I found your NVChad series. It would be fantastic if you could also do a video making a Java setup :)

[@cankocak1068]

Awesome video! I got into Neovim thanks to you and I'm absolutely loving it. Thank you for the amazing content 😊

[@studysavviour]

Thanks mate, my VSC died and couldn't run C++ earlier, I've always wanted to switch to NVIM and now I have done it finally, Thanks a lot again.

[@rugososphotos3646]

HUGE value in this video, just getting into nvim plus c++, this is the video I needed :)

[@roshanpaudel6352]

You are awesome man !!! I also use arch and neovim. The quality content you provide are very consise and really helpful. You are really underrated !!

[@dreamsofcode]

Thank you for the feedback! I appreciate it and am very glad you like the content!

[@scraped_2454]

You forgot the "btw"

[@roshanpaudel6352]

@@scraped_2454 😂 aww man !!

[@joshuarose20]

guys, this guy uses arch linux btw

[@scraped_2454]

@@roshanpaudel6352 Game is the game

[@yolepe]

Thank you for all your work, there was no other guide that was as thorough as this.

[@dreamsofcode]

Glad it was helpful!

[@PedroMiguelMoreiraRamalho]

This video is superb. I love your explanation and how you go through every single step. Very helpful! Thanks so much.

[@dreamsofcode]

Thank you so much. I really appreciate that feedback!

[@jacoboneill3735]

I set up everything like was said in your video (which was great and really informative). Now I am just stuck on the build tools to save and update the build when learning. Please come out with that video as soon as possible!

Amazing, as the whole series so far! thanks

[@hitarthpatel]

Great video exactly what I was looking for , can you please make a video/doc about the build plug-in you talk about thanks

[@houdiniping]

you are a life saver, your video is just clear, easy to follow

[@sunnyheheheh9401]

thank you for this video working exactly as you told in my own neovim configuration

[@RT-jp9me]

This is an awesome video. Thank you for explaining step by step how to proceed. However, I am a bit reluctant to go down the route suggested by you as null-ls is now deprecated. Do you have any thoughts on this?

[@evertonbrzozowyalves1775]

Really like your videos dude! Please keep it up.

[@vimalathithand917]

This is an awesome series ! And it'd be cool if u could do a video for configuring neovim for java

[@Redyf]

The video I was waiting for, thanks dreams!

[@dreamsofcode]

I hope it helped!

[@arumaga]

Thank you! much appreciated for this!

[@juangdev6737]

For those who have problems in the last part when executing the "space nr" command. Make sure to include: event = "VeryLazy", after rcarriga/nvim-dap-ui and jay-babu/mason-nvim-dap.nvim in your lua/custom/plugins.lua file. The same thing happened to me and that's what I realized, in the video it shows it very fast at frame 13:20.

[@AbdurrahmanHafez]

Great effort thank you so much We need Front-End tools video

[@ndes0532]

I'd like to suggest Git for a future video. In particular tooling for resolving merge conflicts and navigating complicated branch structures. It's probably my favorite feature of Intellij and I don't know how to replicate it in Neovim.

[@dreamsofcode]

This is a great idea!

[@antoineleduc7611]

Lazygit

[@jerrymann9332]

ironically, java is the only language I wouldn't use nvim for just because intelliJ is so goated. ideavim is a must though obviously

[@user-lp3tt5kj1q]

Thanks for the config files in the description.

[@milkyindo]

Awesome! I am waiting for web development setup such as html/css/javascript on next video 👍

[@h3li0p4us3]

Good job! thanks for this amazing video

[@NormalNvim]

Awesome video edition!!

[@Mikkysam52]

I requested and you delivered. Thank you!

[@dreamsofcode]

You're very welcome. I hope you like it!

[@melontime1864]

Great video - i would love if you could cover the promised Cmake/make integration within Nvim -

[@abombfuenmayor]

You read my mind! I have a setup for C but it's not perfect. Going to try your setup. Thanks!

[@serge933]

This is great! Is there an easy way to have nvim configured for both Python and C++? How would you go about switching between both functionalities I watched your Python one and it really helped me get up and running quickly with nvim. I thought it was going to be an absolute nightmare trying to do it on my own. Thanks for these!

[@alexsoul982]

Great video man, the arch/nvim comunity most trully thanks and apreciate you

[@dreamsofcode]

Thank you! I really appreciate that.

[@ericling1564]

The configuration works fine, and It's pretty easy to understand. I just have one more question , if you could help me out. I do'nt know how if there's a built in configuration to see the outline of the buffer, I myself didn't find anyway. I also don't know how to set this up. Thanks for your job anyway.👏👏👏

[@jakubjaworski8828]

Nice video. I'd love to see stomething like this for the JavaScript and web development in general

[@dreamsofcode]

I shall add it to the backlog, friend!

[@abdullah22112]

Thanks mate! Amazing😊

[@TheCSarmat]

Thanks a lot for the video. Is there similar instruction on how to add CMake support?

[@liyuefu]

Thanks a lot! Can I just ask a question? how I can pass the argument to debug? for example, I want to run "gaussdb -D /opt/opengauss/pgdata", how to pass the -D .. etc to it? When I try to add it in the , it does not work. Thanks.

[@abhi_survase]

Very consice and easy instructions to follow. I am learning NVim on windows and this is helping me set it up. Only one thing is that at 6:22 the suggestions and autocomplete are not as many as seen here. For me after 'std::' some functions only appear if I enter a character. I have installed Cpp-toolchain using MSYS so I have clang gcc cl compilers. But have set only gcc in the path. Is this the problem?

[@Cyrsztof]

Hi, sorry for digging your comment after few months, but did you find the solution to this problem? I'm having the exact same issue - most suggestions are missing for me. :/

[@martinlarsson1365]

I'd love one of these for C# as well!

[@dr3d3d]

great video thanks very much, can you point me in the right direction for the cmake addition? would love a method of building and running from inside nvim

[@MK-bx8xv]

Thanks for your series! Would it be possible to add a CMake setup? I can't get neovim to resolve basic stuff like custom import directoy whenever I use a CMake based project.

[@VladTBK]

Ik you probably won't read this, but I've been struggling for almost 5-6 hours to get the debugger to work for Neovim. I've done everything right, but never added --debug to the g++ compilation. Thank you.

[@mamahuhu_one]

Thank you for the video. I followed all the steps and could add breakpoints with db but when I press dr I get "no configuration found for `cpp`. You need to add configs to `dap.configurations.cpp` (see `:h dap-configuration`)." Did I do something wrong?

[@gregszalayofficial]

I had the same error. In my case I forgot the 'event = "VeryLazy"', line for the "jay-babu/mason-nvim-dap.nvim" plugin. Adding this fixed it.

[@nikodem_____5023]

Perfect, exactly what I need❤

[@dreamsofcode]

I hope it helps!

[@nathangale1842]

Thank you so much!!!!!!

[@42ott90]

thanks that was very helpfull

[@apurvaisnotcool]

Love this video. Please make a nvchad setup for unity development. Please 🙏

[@EdwinChenLoo]

Thanks for the tutorial. Was the video on how to invoke custom commands to build and jump to source code with errors ever created?

[@lampham7874]

This video is awesome as I can get a good config without knowing much about neovim yet. I have a question that, sometime I make mistake in code and there is a message popped up: (fix available). How can I apply these fixes? Thank you.

[@mahmudul006]

THank you so much for sharing!. Can you please make a tutorial o how to setup nvim for java application development.

[@ryoschinlot9153]

I have a weird problem, see, mason is kind of not really that compatible with NixOs, so it's always a gamble if a package will work on my system or not. Now, there are workarounds, and I usually just install it using the package manager, however dap cannot automatically find and setup my debugger, and I am quite inexperienced when it comes to setting up debuggers in Neovim myself. Would you mind kind of explaining how to link lldb (cannot seem to find codelldb, and I am not sure if they are the same thing) or gdb with Neovim manually?

[@CPSPD]

thanks! this was really good. do you have any idea whether there's a method for nvim-dap configurations to remember the last executable file path? for example in my setup, i have a /src and a /build directory, and fixing the file path every time to point to ../build/myexecutable.exe is tedious. thank you again.

[@CPSPD]

solution: - make a custom dap.configurations.c entry (i copied the example from nvim-dap github wiki) - make a local variable lastProgram outside the configurations entry - as the "program" element in the "Launch file" configuration i set lastProgram to vim.fn.input(...) from the wiki example - in a new configuration "Launch last file" i set "program" to return the lastProgram variable. anyway lol if anyone has a better idea then feel free to say :)

[@aungthuhein007]

Noob question: is there a way to work with Markdown files (with tables, footnotes, etc.) with a rendered window on the right in Neovim? For note-taking purposes. I'm guessing no?

[@adibhanna]

Love your videos! great content and sick editing! What are you using to edit all these videos? your animation skills is 🔥

[@dreamsofcode]

Thanks, dude! I use Davinci Resolve almost exclusively, with some After effects if I can't figure it out in DR. I'm planning on starting another channel for tutorials on motion graphics and am putting together an animation pack as well for some easy drag and drop effects that I use!

[@adibhanna]

@@dreamsofcode That's cool! I didn't know DR can do so much! I mainly use Screenflow to record my videos. but I dont' have much editing experience. How do you record your screen with DR?

[@dreamsofcode]

@@adibhanna I actually record with ffmpeg and use a stream deck for toggling it. I find it's the quickest way to do so for me. I have some custom scripts that also convert to ProRes and to a lossless compressed version as well. More tooling I eventually want to package up and share one day!

[@adibhanna]

@@dreamsofcode that's such a unique idea! love it

[@user-hp1dx4tf2b]

Great video! Would you mind please share the setup of your terminal as well? thanks.

[@fahim0404150]

Great video. Could you please tell me what font you are using?

[@dreamsofcode]

JetBrainsMono Nerd Font!

[@conarius13]

One suggestion for C/C++ is the Neovim plugin Ouroboros, where you can switch between header and source files with a command. I then just created a custom mapping for it so I can switch between both of them quickly. And a follow up would be great to see how we can use include and library paths for different C++ libraries (such as Vulkan and OpenGL, OpenCL, Qt and Boost, just to name a few). I figured out how to do that within VS Code but I really wanna know how to do it in neovim, including setting build commands so the include and library paths are also used in the build command.

[@dreamsofcode]

This is an awesome suggestion. I may do a dedicated video to this plugin!

[@theglowpt3]

The clangd lsp already supports this via ClangdSwitchSourceHeader. I'm sure it's a cool plugin, unnecessary if you have lsp set up though

[@conarius13]

​@@theglowpt3The author of Ourboros explained why he made the plugin: All other implementations would either throw errors easily or you can only switch from header to source but not the other way round.

[@conarius13]

​@@dreamsofcodeOh and I have also looked into setting up neovim for other languages as well and found very interesting plugins and configs. If you want, I could show you some of them

[@theglowpt3]

@@conarius13 Interesting, I'm able to switch both ways just fine, never had any errors or issues at all really

[@itsrobelschwarz7248]

Would really appreciate that CMake video right about now

[@korigamik]

This is great, can you tell us what you use to create these amazing visuals in the video? What video editor and your configuration?

[@dreamsofcode]

I'm using Davinci Resolve! I'm currently packaging up my custom effects in order to sell in the near future and will be doing tutorials on them on a new channel: @dreamsofmotion. I'll do a channel post when that drops!

[@michaelmueller9635]

Is there a way to get the value of vectors/objects while debugging? I got the feeling, that - except for primitive data types - it's really hard to use the debugger.

[@engin647]

Thanks for this helpful video. I'm waiting to you share cmake plugin usage video which you mention at 16:00

[@user-gd6gq9qe2f]

Hi, your video is really helpful. I have been following your tutorial and it worked great! However, I can't seem to get the feature of automatic header inclusion working like you showed in the video in your main.cpp file. My autocompletion for `std::` also does not work until I include the correct headers. I see you get all these completions for `std::` without any header files and you get `clangd` to automatically include the headers for you. Do you have any special setup to make that work? Thanks!

[@user-gd6gq9qe2f]

I figured out that it is enabled by default in clang-16.

[@beekey4807]

i want to use it for c, everything working perfectly fine but when i trying to debug i got error. "No configuration found for 'c'. you need to add configs to 'dap.configurations.c'" any help?

[@Kalasklister1337]

I assume you need to search which mason/nvim plugins you need for C DAP. DAP stands for debugger adapter protocol and it is seriously cool tech. You can even configure it so that you have your debugee on a server or a local docker container and debug without having any dependencies on your system. Just look around for C specific ways and you can get it to work

[@Nuada2723]

What terminal do you use? I'm struggling to find one that works well with different tmux configs but also looks nice.

[@dreamsofcode]

I use Alacritty and it's been great. If I ever work on Wayland however, I end up using foot instead.

[@kachunpang7543]

May I know which Neovim plugin offers us lightbulb/warning icon for Linter warnings in 5:19 ?

[@kirillarionov123456]

Thank you very much!

[@dreamsofcode]

You're welcome! Thank you for watching.

[@bantix9902]

the debugger doesn't work for me, after I do dr a new tab opens up but it doesn't look like a debugging window like on your screen. It's just blank with the title [dap-terminal].. EDIT: I copied your config and it works, but honestly it's soo complicated

[@rafa6536]

Neovim I installed yesterday first time in my life. It's fun, liked it. But sadly for my language there are no quality plugins like there are in VSCode so I can't migrate.

[@cockytrumpet]

This is fantastic! As someone who is new to neovim and nvchad, what do I need to do to pass arguments to the C being debugged?

[@liyuefu]

Higuy, I got same question, have you got it fixed? :)

[@v47on]

thanks for this and for the golang configuration can u add a code runner plugin would be awesome

[@sparlockthewarrior-wizard3016]

This is pretty great. One issue I have though about .clang-format. In your exemple, you have a single cpp file in the same folder as .clang-format. But typically you want the .clang-format file in your project's root directory with source files in subfolders. If I try to do that, the file doesn't get detected if I run nvim on the root folder without any arg. It gets the default clang format. The only way I found is to have a dummy cpp file at the root (same folder as .clang-format file) and have nvim open it. Then going through folders with ctrl-n, other files I open will use my .clang-format as well. But it's not fantastic.

[@peterzeman2749]

Hello, I followed exactly your instructions and it worked well for several months. But now suddenly I do not know what happend recently (I was not using c++ for some time) there is some error detecting standard header files. For example it says "'iostream' file not found". I am using mac os. Do you know what might be the problem?

[@charleslowyer8926]

Can u please make a video about configuring Java in nvim. Especially configuring LSP server from Eclipse is one big nightmare for me and can't figure it out :/ There're just few videos on YT about it. I watched them like 10 times and still it doesnt work for me

[@pramudyatamir5479]

please make configuration for front end too, seems legit

[@wondays654]

Weird question, but do you use plasma for arch or a window manager(if so which one?)

[@dreamsofcode]

I use Gnome X11 for filming. The animations are all video editing however so it's mostly just to have a clean window for filming with.

[@wcrb15]

Any idea on what you're going to use going forward since null-ls is archived?

[@dreamsofcode]

I'm working on a video about it! There's a couple of options moving forward, but I think it's going to be decided by what the community moves to.

[@michrisoft]

You can just swap out the null-ls for "nvimtools/none-ls.nvim" in the plugins file and pretty much everything else is the same. You even leave require "null-ls" in the config file because none-ls was made to be a drop-in replacement.

[@NoctuaDeveloppement]

Amazing video ! Can you did one about PHP ?

[@dreamsofcode]

Absolutely! Added to the backlog

[@futotta-neko]

I always get this problem where i get no code completion like you do and js not found, but compiles just fine in the terminal

[@KamalNathan121212]

Hi :), Everytime MasonInstallAll is executed clangd is getting downloaded, is there any way to avoid this if its already installed ?

[@shridharthakar4845]

Loved your videos on python, and was really happy to see c++ one. I followed the steps in the videos, and noticed that the auto-suggestions don't work with private or protected member functions in c++. Any idea on how I can fix that. Thanks

[@dreamsofcode]

Hmm that's annoying. If you jump in my discord we can take a look!

[@ChrisCox-wv7oo]

Might need to generate a compile_commands.json for those suggestions to be made

[@TinyPhil]

if i accidentally typed y when it asked "do you want to install example custom config" can i re do the proccess? i tried to delete the pluging and reinstall the neo vim and the pluggin but with no success

[@eddyecko94]

null-ls is being archived soon. Look at another way of formatting. clangd comes with a formatter. You can use that with some keybindings or auto commands to set the formatting.

[@dreamsofcode]

Yeah, I'm working on a video about it now. News dropped after I had uploaded and was waiting for review.

[@tuhoang6609]

thank you very much but I have one question how I can input compile_commands.json to clangd in vim to go to definition and declaration. I have to do this a lot while coding

[@AhmadShauqi-co3ij]

Next php with xdebug, nice tutorial 👍

[@bobsoup2319]

My breakpoints keep getting rejected, although the code executes successfully - any advice? I already tried using -glldb instead of --debug, but that didn't fix it. I'm using the latest macos with an m1 mac

[@dn275]

I had to use cpptools instead of codelldb. cpptools can be installed using mason as well

[@user-nd4ld3vg9u]

Can I do something to use Allman code style by default, but without creating .clang-format file in each project directory?

[@samkim9401]

isn't Clang-format already included with clangd? It's not working for me despite me retrying. I'll manually format my code for now.

[@BobiBobObana]

big big big thanks for video. please make video for cmake and make in neovim

[@michaelcalabrese9338]

My tree that I start with looks nothing like yours in .config after installing nvchad, I have configs and plugins directories and chadrc, mappings, and options are just in the lua directory

[@younesmdarhrialaoui643]

Hey man I love the videos and the format but I don't know how exactly the nvim.backup behaves compared to the normal nvim (1:04) and I think you should've explained it. Other than that the videos are great ♥ keep up the good work 👍

[@dreamsofcode]

Hey! Sorry I didn't explain that properly. All it's doing is moving any existing Neovim config into a new directory just called backup. That way you're able to clone into the new repo. You can just rename that back directory to nvim in order to restore your backup. Hope that helps!

[@younesmdarhrialaoui643]

@@dreamsofcode Okay got it thanks!

[@Augustus0Kyriakos]

What is the syntax for debugging with an executable that uses an inputfile?

[@sa27ph]

Hello, could you do a video on your tmux config? looks neat!

[@dreamsofcode]

I have one already 😁

[@jacoboneill3735]

Is there a way to set the lspconfig to change the version of c++ it is using, e.g. c++13 instead of c++11?

[@flymetothemoon9946]

Thank u so much, but… Can you help me? After last step (space+dr): “No configuration found for ‘cpp’. You need to add configs to ‘dap.configurations.cpp’ (See ‘:h dap-configuration’)”

[@banpridev]

Were you able to fix it?

[@harshithgowda6227]

when is the cmake build video comming out?

[@kaab0601]

Hello, I am trying to connect cmake to nvchad. Can you please help?

[@user-us9tt3li4x]

great video but I cant get the lsp to work, i was able to get clangd installed once however the lsp did not work so i tried to run MasonInstallAll again but clangd fails to install with the " error rmrf: Could not remove directory ". i can manually delete the directory to install clang again but even then the lsp does not work any idea on how to fix this. im using windows btw

[@ronit27]

Thanks for your video tutorial. 👍 Help me please. I need your video tutorial about configuring neovim for c/c++ with gcc, g++, and gdb. Thank you 🙏

[@JohnUllrey]

I've loved and coded with Vim for nearly 30 years and now I'm leaning how to turn it into a full featured IDE. Love it! Thank you for showing how to do this. If I want to do the same for normal C (Linux gcc) will this setup work with minor tweaks, or do I need additional modules?

[@Shad0wMonkey5]

Can you do the perfect neovim configuration for Java please. That would be amazing and most appreciated. :D

[@dreamsofcode]

It's going to a vote for the next video!

[@cprn.]

Honestly, it looks almost exactly the same - you just need to call `:Mason`, press , find "Java" on the list, type in filter number (it's 71), enter. Now you select an LSP, linter, formatter and debugger (press "I" for "install" on each). Add formatter and linter as source for `null-ls` and you're done. TreeSitter will instal syntax files next time you open Java code. Looks the same for every language.

[@JesusCastilloBenito]

@@cprn. yeah, that's what i thought, but java-language-server seems to not work, so I personally don't know if I just have to go with jdtls or what :')

[@cprn.]

@@JesusCastilloBenito Maybe it's something that should be brought up on that LSP's bug tracker (github or whatever they use). Most servers just work out of the box.

[@Zeioth]

Get NormalNvim, it comes with formatter, debugger, and all the stuff preconfigured.