Editing xml files with long lines is really slow in vim. What can I do to fix this?

The problem is that VIM syntax-highlighting is slow for long lines. An easy fix that only slightly degrades functionality is to limit syntax highlighting to the first x columns. Something like this in your .vimrc:

set synmaxcol=120

It is 2014, I am using Vim version 7.4. the syntax highlighting and Long line combination still causes vim to behave unacceptably slow. As this is the first response returned from Google I wanted to drop my "current" solutions.

• I have found that simply toggling your syntax on and off after loading the offending file allows vim to behave at an acceptable pace. For convenience you can bind it

  :syntax off :syntax on

  or bind it: nnoremap <leader>ts :syntax off<cr>:syntax on<cr>

• I have also found that sourcing my .vimrc will produce the same result

  :source $MYVIMRC

  and obligatory map: nnoremap <leader>sv :source $MYVIMRC<cr>

EDIt ---- 07/31/14

Further exploration has lead me to limit the syntax with a maximum column. This has worked very well and I haven't had any problems since I've add the below to my vimrc.

set synmaxcol=250

this limits syntax generously to the first 250 columns.