Vim finds incorrect matching bracket when using %

Question

I am trying to learn VIM, buy I noticed when I try using the % command to go to a matching bracket, VIM sometimes finds the correct matching bracket and is sometimes way off. Has anyone ever come across this with a solution?

Answer 1

No, I haven't. It might indicate you have missing brackets.

Answer 2

This happens because:

1. You have an actual syntax error with a mismatched paren or curly brace somewhere.
2. You have a value in cpoptions that prevents semi-intelligent brace matching. Look up :help cpoptions and :help %.
3. You have something too sophisicated for plain old Vim matching to handle. Try installing the matchit plugin, which may help. Common culprits are braces inside comments or regexes.

Answer 3

Apparently, vim parses brackets even in comments, which was happening in my case, I had a non-complete bracket pair commented out, meaning vim did not find bracket pairs correctly but the compiler had no problem, hence my confusion.