Using space in g:ale_sign_* variables causes error

[nkakouros]

Information

NVIM v0.4.0-370-gc0a29c365
Build type: RelWithDebInfo

Operating System: Arch Linux latest

What went wrong

I am not sure this is an error with ale or with vim itself.

I want to use a single character as error, warning, etc symbol, for instance > instead of `>>. But this fails.

Reproducing the bug

1. `let g:ale_sign_error = ' >'
2. e file/with/errors

The following error pops up:

Error detected while processing /home/me/.local/share/nvim/plugged/ale/autoload/ale/sign.vim:
line   71:
E239: Invalid sign text: 

As a workaround I used a non-breaking space.

[nkakouros]

I also found that \ > works. Probably this is a vim limitation.

[w0rp]

I think it's just a bug. I'll fix it by escaping the spaces.

[w0rp]

That should work now.

[nkakouros]

Indeed it works. Thank you for covering my use case!

[kiooss]

@w0rp
This commit has some side effort which make char like ✖ not useable.

E239: Invalid sign text: ✖\

To reproduce:

:let g:ale_sign_error='✖'
:echo substitute(g:ale_sign_error, '\\\| ', '\\\0', 'g')
✖\

[w0rp]

That works for me. Try adding this to the top of your vimrc file.

set encoding=utf-8
scriptencoding utf-8

[kiooss]

Thanks, it works now. My mistake.