I am confused between the two events BufRead and BufEnter. What is the difference between them?
Some example scenarios where I would choose one over the other would be greatly helpful.
A buffer is the in-memory representation of a file; to edit one, it has to be displayed in a window.
The BufRead event is triggered after Vim has read the file into its memory. Unless you reload via :edit!, this only happens once.
The BufEnter is fired whenever you activate a certain buffer, i.e. when it becomes the buffer the cursor is in. For example when you have split windows that show different buffers, and you move between them. Also in a single window, when you use a command like <C-^>, :bnext to change which buffer is currently being edited.