vim setting error under BufRead

Running into a strange issue with my vimrc setting where I isolated to these 2 combination of lines if I use BufRead.

e.g.

au BufRead *.py \ set softtabstop=4 \ set shiftwidth=4 

Now if I open a file with .py, I get error:

Error detected while processing BufRead Auto commands for "*.py": E518: Unknown option: set 

This only happens under au BufRead and individually each setting works but not in combination?

2 Answers

If you want to use multiple set, separate with |:

au BufRead *.py \ set softtabstop=4 | \ set shiftwidth=4 

Read more :help :bar.

please use one set with space separated options:

au BufRead *.py set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4