四.　　Search and replace

Basic search and replaceedit | edit source

The :substitute command searches for a text pattern, and replaces it with a text string. There are many options, but these are what you probably want:

:s/foo/bar/g: Find each occurrence of 'foo' (in the current line only), and replace it with 'bar'.

:%s/foo/bar/g: Find each occurrence of 'foo' (in all lines), and replace it with 'bar'.

:%s/foo/bar/gc: Change each 'foo' to 'bar', but ask for confirmation first.

:%s/<foo>/bar/gc: Change only whole words exactly matching 'foo' to 'bar'; ask for confirmation.

:%s/foo/bar/gci: Change each 'foo' (case insensitive due to the i flag) to 'bar'; ask for confirmation.; :%s/fooc/bar/gc is the same because c makes the search case insensitive.; This may be wanted after using :set noignorecase to make searches case sensitive (the default).

:%s/foo/bar/gcI: Change each 'foo' (case sensitive due to the I flag) to 'bar'; ask for confirmation.; :%s/fooC/bar/gc is the same because C makes the search case sensitive.; This may be wanted after using :set ignorecase to make searches case insensitive.

The g flag means global – each occurrence in the line is changed, rather than just the first. This tip assumes the default setting for the 'gdefault' and 'edcompatible' option (off), which requires that the g flag be included in %s///g to perform a global substitute. Using :set gdefault creates confusion because then %s/// is global, whereas %s///g is not (that is, g reverses its meaning).

When using the c flag, you need to confirm for each match what to do. Vim will output something like: replace with foobar (y/n/a/q/l/^E/^Y)? (where foobar is the replacement part of the :s/.../.../ command. You can type y which means to substitute this match, n to skip this match, a to substitute this and all remaining matches ("all" remaining matches), q to quit the command, l to substitute this match and quit (think of "last"), ^E to scroll the screen up by holding the Ctrl key and pressing E and ^Y to scroll the screen down by holding the Ctrl key and pressing Y. However, the last two choices are only available, if your Vim is a normal, big or huge built or the insert_expand feature was enabled at compile time (look for +insert_expand in the output of :version).

Also when using the c flag, Vim will jump to the first match it finds starting from the top of the buffer and prompt you for confirmation to perform replacement on that match. Vim applies the IncSearch highlight group to the matched text to give you a visual cue as to which match it is operating on (set to reverse by default for all three term types as of Vim 7.3). Additionally, if more than one match is found and you have search highlighting enabled with :set hlsearch, Vim highlights the remaining matches with the Search highlight group. If you do use search highlighting, you should make sure that these two highlight groups are visually distinct or you won't be able to easily tell which match Vim is prompting you to substitute.

Detailsedit | edit source

Search range:

`:s/foo/bar/g`	Change each 'foo' to 'bar' in the current line.
`:%s/foo/bar/g`	Change each 'foo' to 'bar' in all the lines.
`:5,12s/foo/bar/g`	Change each 'foo' to 'bar' for all lines from line 5 to line 12 (inclusive).
`:'a,'bs/foo/bar/g`	Change each 'foo' to 'bar' for all lines from mark a to mark b inclusive (see Note below).
`:'<,'>s/foo/bar/g`	When compiled with `+visual`, change each 'foo' to 'bar' for all lines within a visual selection. Vim automatically appends the visual selection range ('<,'>) for any ex command when you select an area and enter `:`. Also, see Note below.
`:.,$s/foo/bar/g`	Change each 'foo' to 'bar' for all lines from the current line (.) to the last line ($) inclusive.
`:.,+2s/foo/bar/g`	Change each 'foo' to 'bar' for the current line (.) and the two next lines (+2).
`:g/^baz/s/foo/bar/g`	Change each 'foo' to 'bar' in each line starting with 'baz'.

Note: As of Vim 7.3, substitutions applied to a range defined by marks or a visual selection (which uses a special type of marks '< and '>) are not bounded by the column position of the marks by default. Instead, Vim applies the substitution to the entire line on which each mark appears unless the \%V atom is used in the pattern like: :'<,'>s/\%Vfoo/bar/g.

When searching:

., *, , [, ^, and $ are metacharacters.

+, ?, |, &, {, (, and ) must be escaped to use their special function.

/ is / (use backslash + forward slash to search for forward slash)

is tab, s is whitespace (space or tab)

is newline,

is CR (carriage return = Ctrl-M = ^M)

After an opening [, everything until the next closing ] specifies a /collection. Character ranges can be represented with a -; for example a letter a, b, c, or the number 1 can be matched with [1a-c]. Negate the collection with [^ instead of [; for example [^1a-c] matches any character except a, b, c, or 1.

{#} is used for repetition. /foo.{2} will match foo and the two following characters. The is not required on the closing } so /foo.{2} will do the same thing.

(foo) makes a backreference to foo. Parenthesis without escapes are literally matched. Here the is required for the closing ).

When replacing:

is newline,

is a null byte (0x00).

& is ampersand (& is the text that matches the search pattern).

inserts the text matched by the entire pattern

1 inserts the text of the first backreference. 2 inserts the second backreference, and so on.

You can use other delimiters with substitute:

:s#http://www.example.com/index.html#http://example.com/#

Save typing by using zs and ze to set the start and end of a pattern. For example, instead of:

Use:

Using the current word or registersedit | edit source

:%s//bar/g: Replace each match of the last search pattern with 'bar'.; For example, you might first place the cursor on the word foo then press * to search for that word.; The above substitute would then change all words exactly matching 'foo' to 'bar'.

:%s/foo/<c-r><c-w>/g: Replace each occurrence of 'foo' with the word under the cursor.; <c-r><c-w> means that you press Ctrl-R then Ctrl-W.; The word under the cursor will be inserted as though you typed it.

:%s/foo/<c-r><c-a>/g: Replace each occurrence of 'foo' with the WORD under the cursor (delimited by whitespace).; <c-r><c-a> means that you press Ctrl-R then Ctrl-A.; The WORD under the cursor will be inserted as though you typed it.

:%s/foo/<c-r>a/g: Replace each occurrence of 'foo' with the contents of register 'a'.; <c-r>a means that you press Ctrl-R then a.; The contents of register 'a' will be inserted as though you typed it.

:%s/foo/<c-r>0/g: Same as above, using register 0 which contains the text from the most recent yank command. Examples of yank (copy) commands are yi( which copies the text inside parentheses around the cursor, and y$ which copies the text from the cursor to the end of the line. After a yank command which did not specify a destination register, the copied text can be entered by pressing Ctrl-R then 0.

:%s/foo/=@a/g: Replace each occurrence of 'foo' with the contents of register 'a'.; =@a is a reference to register 'a'.; The contents of register 'a' is not shown in the command. This is useful if the register contains many lines of text.

:%s//<c-r>//g: Replace each match of the last search pattern with the / register (the last search pattern).; After pressing Ctrl-R then / to insert the last search pattern (and before pressing Enter to perform the command), you could edit the text to make any required change.

:%s/<c-r>*/bar/g: Replace all occurrences of the text in the system clipboard (in the * register) with 'bar' (see next example if multiline).; On some systems, selecting text (in Vim or another application) is all that is required to place that text in the * register.

:%s/<c-r>a/bar/g

Replace all occurrences of the text in register 'a' with 'bar'.

<c-r>a means that you press Ctrl-R then a. The contents of register 'a' will be inserted as though you typed it.

Any newlines in register 'a' are inserted as ^M and are not found.

The search works if each ^M is manually replaced with ' ' (two characters: backslash, 'n').

This replacement can be performed while you type the command:

:%s/<c-r>=substitute(@a,"
",'\n','g')<CR>/bar/g

The

"
"

(double quotes) represents the single character newline; the '\n' (single quotes) represents two backslashes followed by 'n'.

The substitute() function is evaluated by the <c-r>= (Ctrl-R =) expression register; it replaces each newline with a single backslash followed by 'n'.

The <CR> indicates that you press Enter to finish the = expression.

:%s/<c-r>0/bar/g: Same as above, using register 0 which contains the text from the most recent yank command.

See Paste registers in search or colon commands instead of using the clipboard.

Additional examplesedit | edit source

:%s/foo/bar/: On each line, replace the first occurrence of "foo" with "bar".

:%s/.*zsfoo/bar/: On each line, replace the last occurrence of "foo" with "bar".

:%s/<foo>//g: On each line, delete all occurrences of the whole word "foo".

:%s/<foo>.*//: On each line, delete the whole word "foo" and all following text (to end of line).

:%s/<foo>.{5}//: On each line, delete the first occurrence of the whole word "foo" and the following five characters.

:%s/<foo>zs.*//: On each line, delete all text following the whole word "foo" (to end of line).

:%s/.*<foo>//: On each line, delete the whole word "foo" and all preceding text (from beginning of line).

:%s/.*ze<foo>//: On each line, delete all the text preceding the whole word "foo" (from beginning of line).

:%s/.*(<foo>).*/1/: On each line, delete all the text preceding and following the whole word "foo".

:%s/<foo(bar)@!/toto/g: On each line, replace each occurrence of "foo" (which starts a word and is not followed by "bar") by "toto".

:s/^(w)/u1/: If the first character at the beginning of the current line only is lowercase, switch it to uppercase using u (see switching case of characters).

:%s/(.* ){5}/& /: Insert a blank line every 5 lines.; The pattern searches for (.* ) (any line including its line ending) repeated five times ({5}).; The replacement is & (the text that was found), followed by (newline).

:%s/<foo(a*)>/=len(add(list, submatch(1)))?submatch(0):submatch(0)/g: Get a list of search results. (the list must exist); Sets the modified flag, because of the replacement, but the content is unchanged.; Note: With a recent enough Vim (version 7.3.627 or higher), you can simplify this to:
:%s/<foo(a*)>/=add(list, submatch(1))/gn: This has the advantage, that the buffer won't be marked modified and no extra undo state is created. The expression in the replacement part is executed in the sandbox and not allowed to modify the buffer.

Special casesedit | edit source

For substituting patterns with corresponding case-sensitive text, Michael Geddes's keepcase plugin can be used, e.g.:

:%SubstituteCase/cHello/goodBye/g: Substitute 'Hello hello helLo HELLO' by 'Goodbye goodbye goodBye GOODBYE'

For changing the offsets in a patch file (line number of a block), this little snippet can be used:

s/^@@ -(d+),(d+) +(d+),(d+) @@$/="@@ -".eval(submatch(1)+offsetdiff).",".submatch(2)." +".eval(submatch(3)+offsetdiff).",".submatch(4)." @@"/g

Useful when we want to strip some blocks from a patch, without patch having to complain about offset differences.

Note Should try to make the expression more compact, but don't know how without having the possibility of modifying unwanted lines.

vim	意义
*	匹配0个或多个(匹配优先)
+	匹配1个或多个(匹配优先)
? 或 =	0个或1个(匹配优先),? 不能在?命令中使用
{n,m}	匹配n个到m个, 如`d{1, 3}`可以匹配`1`到`3`个数字,类似`11`, `1`, `333`
{n,}	最少`n`个(匹配优先)
{,m}	最多`m`个(匹配优先)
{n}	恰好`n`个

元字符	说明
`.`	匹配任意一个字符,如`p*p`可以匹配字符串`pep`, `pip`或者`pcp`
`[abc]`	匹配方括号中的任意一个字符。可以使用-表示字符范围
`[a-z0-9]`	匹配小写字母和阿拉伯数字
`[^abc]`	在方括号内开头使用`^`符号，表示匹配除方括号中字符之外的任意字符
`d`	匹配阿拉伯数字，等同于`[0-9]`
`D`	匹配阿拉伯数字之外的任意字符，等同于`[^0-9]`
`x`	匹配十六进制数字，等同于`[0-9A-Fa-f]`
`w`	匹配单词字母，等同于`[0-9A-Za-z_]`
`W`	匹配单词字母之外的任意字符，等同于`[^0-9A-Za-z_]`
	匹配`<TAB>`字符
`s`	匹配空白字符，等同于`[ ]`
`S`	匹配非空白字符，等同于`[^ ]`
`a`	所有的字母字符. 等同于`[a-zA-Z]`
`l`	小写字母`[a-z]`
`L`	非小写字母`[^a-z]`
`u`	大写字母 `[A-Z]`
`U`	非大写字幕`[^A-Z]`

位置元字符	含义
`$`	匹配行尾,如`here:$`只会匹配出位于一行结尾的`here:`.
`^`	匹配行首,如`^Part`只会匹配出位于一行开头的`Part`.
`<` `>`	会匹配出以某些字符开头的(`<`)或结尾(`>`)的单词.`<ac`只会匹配出以`ac`开头的单词,如`action`,而`ac>/`只会匹配出以`ac`结尾的单词,如`maniac`.`<action>`会匹配出`action`这个单词.单词的开头和结尾,是用标点符号或空格来分隔的.

vim	Perl	意义	例子
`@=`	`(?=`	顺序环视	查找后面是`sql`的`my`： `/my(sql)@=`
`@!`	`(?!`	顺序否定环视	查找后面不是`sql`的`my`： `/my(sql)@!`
`@<=`	`(?<=`	逆序环视	查找前面是`my`的`sql`： `/(my)@<=sql`
`@<!`	`(?<!`	逆序否定环视	查找前面不是`my`的`sql`： `/(my)@<!sql`
`@>`	`(?>`	固化分组
`\%(atom)`	`(?:`	非捕获型括号(此分组不捕获，可以理解为不算在分组信息中)	`:%s/\%(my)sql(ok)/1`这个命令会将`mysqlok`替换为 `ok` ，由于`my`为捕获在分组中，故组中`1` 为`ok`。

s	替换
%	全文
$	最后一行
1	第一行
g	global? 就是在前面指定的行中替换所有匹配的字符串，如果不加这个就只匹配每一行中的第一个，此处还可以用`c` `p`
c	每次替换前会确认

VIM

一.　　正则表达式

关于`magic`

量词

一些常用的元字符

元字符的转义:

表示位置的符号

替换变量

非贪婪匹配

环视,或者说正向预查,反向预查

二.　　常用的替换命令

pattern和正则之间的关系

1. v模式 (v小写)

2. m模式

三.　　vim 全文替换的几种写法

四.　　Search and replace

Contents

Basic search and replaceedit | edit source

Detailsedit | edit source

Using the current word or registersedit | edit source

Additional examplesedit | edit source

Special casesedit | edit source

VIM

一. 正则表达式

关于magic

量词

一些常用的元字符

元字符的转义:

表示位置的符号

替换变量

非贪婪匹配

环视,或者说正向预查,反向预查

二. 常用的替换命令

pattern和正则之间的关系

1. v模式 (v小写)

2. m模式

三. vim 全文替换的几种写法

四. Search and replace

Contents

Basic search and replaceedit | edit source

Detailsedit | edit source

Using the current word or registersedit | edit source

Additional examplesedit | edit source

Special casesedit | edit source

一.　　正则表达式

关于`magic`

二.　　常用的替换命令

三.　　vim 全文替换的几种写法

四.　　Search and replace