Error when trying to add visible marks in vim

Question

I am trying to use visible markers in vim.
I have the following in my .vimrc file:

sign define information text=!> linehl=Warning texthl=Error  
exe ":sign place 123 line=" . line(.) ."name=information file=" . expand("%:p")  
map <F7> :exe ":sign place 123 line=" . line(".") ."name=information file=".expand("%:p")<CR>  

But when I open vim I get an error in line exe ":sign etc

line   30:  
E15: Invalid expression: .) ."name=information file=" . expand("%:p")  
E116: Invalid arguments for function line(.) ."name=information file=" . expand("%:p")  
E15: Invalid expression: ":sign place 123 line=" . line(.) ."name=information file=" .   expand("%:p")

What is the problem with my syntax?

Answer 1

The error is fairly easy to spot.

You wrote

line(.)

instead of

line('.') or line(".")

edit

The error message in your question was related to the error above but there's a second error, a missing space.

1. Your line:

   exe ":sign place 123 line=" . line(.) ."name=information file=" . expand("%:p")
   

2. First error corrected by putting the argument to line() in quotes (fixed expand() as well):

   exe ":sign place 123 line=" . line('.') ."name=information file=" . expand('%:p')
   

3. Second error corrected by adding a missing space after the third double quote:

   exe ":sign place 123 line=" . line('.') ." name=information file=" . expand('%:p')
                                             ^
                                             +-- added missing space
   

Because of the missing space, the value of the line argument was something like 26name=information and the name argument was missing.