How To Search and Replace Using The Vim Text Editor

Born from the ashes, Vim is an open-source text editing tool, aptly named “Vi Improved.” Renowned for its heightened efficiency and versatility, Vim emerged from the remnants of the original Vi editor. Its inception aimed to elevate Vi’s capabilities, resulting in a text editor that boasts robustness, extensibility, and a feature-rich environment. Setting itself apart from conventional editors, Vim adopts a distinctive modal approach to editing, demarcating different modes for navigation, insertion, and text manipulation. Although this unique feature contributes to Vim’s steep learning curve, many users attest that it offers unparalleled speed and efficiency once mastered. In this article, we will dive into using the search and replace functionality.

In the realm of text editing, the ability to swiftly search and replace also known as find and replace is paramount for developers and programmers. Can you imagine needing to manually replace a specific section of code referenced many times throughout the source code for a project you are working on? It would be grueling and tedious work instead of something more rewarding. Thankfully search and replace is a common feature included by default in most if not all modern text editors

Before beginning make sure you have the file open that we want to use search and replace on. This would be done on the command line by appending the file path after the Vim command.

Basic Search and Replace using the Slash Command

Vim’s normal mode provides a quick and intuitive way to execute Vim find and replace operations within a line using the slash (/) command. By typing / followed by the desired search pattern, Vim navigates to and matches the next occurrence.

/string

From there we can type the cgn command

cgn

This will delete what was searched for and put Vim into insert mode. Enter the replacement string, then hit the ESC key to put Vim back in normal mode.

Replacing More Than One Occurance

This is also referred to as the slash and dot method but first, you will need to have replaced one occurrence using the above section and enter back into normal mode.

Press the n key after the search for the next occurrence or uppercase N to search in the opposite direction.

From here you can enter the dot key (.) to replace the word with the same one used previously.

Basic Search and Replace using the Substitute Command

The heart of Vim’s find and replace prowess lies in the substitute command (:s). In normal mode, Vim allows efficient Vim find and replace using the substitute command. This command allows for comprehensive search and replace operations, enabling developers to modify text on a broader scale.

Using The Substitute Command to replace all occurrences of a keyword in the Current line

The following command in Vim initiates a substitution, replacing the first occurrence of ‘original’ with ‘replacement’ in the current line.

:s/pattern/replacement/

Using The Substitute Command to replace all occurrences of a keyword in All Lines

To replace all occurrences of ‘original’ with ‘replacement’ across all lines in the file, you use :%s/original/replacement/g in Vim, where % signifies a global substitute.

:%s/pattern/replacement/g

Understanding the Vim Substitute Command

Now that we have looked at some basic examples let’s get to know the the substitute command (:s). Let’s dig into the formatting for the substitute Command in Vim and some of the more common uses.

The basic command syntax of the :substitute command is as follows:

:[range]s[ubstitute]/pattern/replacement/[flags] [count]

Let’s break down each component:

• [range]: Optional. Specifies the range of specific lines where the substitution should occur. If omitted, the substitution applies only to the current line. Examples of ranges include line numbers (:1,10s/pattern/replacement/g) or entire file (:%s/pattern/replacement/g).
• s[ubstitute]: Indicates that you want to perform a substitution.
• /pattern/: This is the search pattern you want to search for. It can be a simple string or a regular expression. The pattern is enclosed in forward slashes (/). For example, if you want to replace the word “apple” with “orange,” the pattern would be /apple/.
• replacement: This is what you want to replace the pattern with. It can include backreferences to parts of the pattern. For example, if you want to replace “apple” with “orange,” the replacement would be orange.
• [flags]: Optional. Flags modify the behavior of the substitution. Some common flags include:
  • g: The g flag stands for global, it replaces all occurrences in each line. If omitted, only the first occurrence in each line is replaced.
  • c: The c flag stands for confirm, it asks for confirmation for each substitution. Useful to prevent unintended replacements.
  • i: Makes search pattern matching case-insensitive. By default, it’s case-sensitive.
  • n: Report the number of substitutions made.
  • &: Repeat the last :s command with the same pattern and replacement but different flags.
• [count]: Optional. Specifies the number of occurrences to replace on each line. If omitted, or if the count is replaced with a blank space, Vim replaces all occurrences on each line.

Conclusion

In conclusion, using find and replace in Vim with slash commands and the substitute command opens up a world of efficiency and precision for developers and text editors. Whether you’re making minor adjustments in a single line or performing global replacements across an entire file, Vim’s versatile and powerful substitute command offers a toolset that can significantly streamline your workflow. While the learning curve might seem steep initially, the investment in understanding these commands pays off with increased speed and control over text manipulation.

Additional Infomation

Vim documentation page

Vim substitute command documentation