VIM 6.0: The following should be helpful in making sure your code adheres to our required format. This should turn on indenting and syntax highlighting for .php files in vim. Add the following to your ~/.vimrc: set ts=4 filetype on filetype indent on set sw=4 set smarttab You can adjust the ts and sw variables to use your preferred tabstop. Place the following into, e.g., /usr/share/vim/vim60/indent/php.vim. This is not a vim syntax file, so don't overwrite your syntax/php.vim with this: ----CUT HERE---- " Vim indent file " Language: Php " Author: Miles Lott " URL: http://milosch.dyndns.org/php.vim " Last Change: 2001 Sep 08 " Only load this indent file when no other was loaded. if exists("b:did_indent") finish endif let b:did_indent = 1 setlocal indentexpr=GetPhpIndent() setlocal indentkeys+=0=,0),=EO " Only define the function once. if exists("*GetPhpIndent") finish endif function GetPhpIndent() " Get the line to be indented let cline = getline(v:lnum) " Find a non-blank line above the current line. let lnum = prevnonblank(v:lnum - 1) " Hit the start of the file, use zero indent. if lnum == 0 return 0 endif let line = getline(lnum) let ind = indent(lnum) " Indent after php open tags if line =~ ']' let ind = ind - &sw endif " Indent blocks enclosed by {} or () if line =~ '[{(]\s*\(#[^)}]*\)\=$' let ind = ind + &sw endif if cline =~ '^\s*[)}]' let ind = ind - &sw endif return ind endfunction ----CUT HERE---- HINT: To reformat an already-coded file using the above: 1. Format the first few lines of the file manually