title: vimrc set highlight mode
body: <p>I have the following in my .vimrc file:</p>
  
  <pre><code>version 6.0
  
  " set highlight mode
  set highlight=8b,@-,db,es,lb,mb,M-,nu,rs,sr,tb,vr,ws
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Which was largely borrowed from <a href="http://www.fleiner.com/vim/syntax/myvimrc" rel="nofollow">here</a>.</p>
  
  <p>I don't understand what this line does:</p>
  
  <pre><code>set highlight=8b,@-,db,es,lb,mb,M-,nu,rs,sr,tb,vr,ws
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I spent a few hours trying to figure out why my line numbers were not conforming to my colorscheme, and have traced it back to this line. If I remove the <code>nu</code> from the list, my line numbers start highlighting correctly. I can't find any documentation explaining what any of those two-character patterns mean. Changing or removing the other ones does not seem to affect anything obvious.</p>
  
  <p>Can someone please point me to some documentation that explains what's going on here?</p>
  
  <p>Edit: I read the :help highlight page in Vim, and could not find anything explaining this syntax. If it exists in help, could someone please tell me how to find the relevant section?</p>