One of my goals for the remaining part of 2024 is to learn and get comfortable with vim. Both with motions and the editor (NeoVim).
I started to work with vim about 2 weeks ago and there is so much to learn. However, I think I have some of the basics covered.
One thing I wanted to learn this week is find and replace. This is an operation I use a lot, both in my coding work as in my writing. Or at least the basics of find and replace.
Pattern
In vim you can use :substitute (:s) to find and replace text.
It follows the following pattern:
:[range]s/{pattern}/{string}/[flags][count]
The command searches each line in [range] for {pattern} and replaces it with {string}. Count is the number of times to repeat this action
When no [range] or [count] is provided, the replace only happens on the current line.
Basics
These are the command I’m currently using.
When I want to replace the first occurrence of “foo” with “bar” on current line.
:s/foo/bar
Replace every occurrence of “foo” with bar on current line.
:s/foo/bar/g
One thing I do often is replace every occurrence of a pattern. The % character will allow you to do this for the entire file.
:%s/foo/bar/g
If confirmation for substitutions is important add i to the end of the command.
:s/foo/bar/gc
The :s command searches for string matches. If you want to match whole words and not part of words, put replace between \<\>
:s/\<foor\>/bar/:w
By adding a i add the end, if you want to ignore character case.
:s/foo/bar/gi
Links
https://linuxize.com/post/vim-find-replace/
[[vim]]