Find and replace strings in vim on multiple lines

Question

I can do   s  lt search string gt   lt replace string gt  g for replacing a string across a file  or  s  lt search string gt   lt replace string gt   to replace in current line   How can I select and replace words from selective lines in vim   Example  replace text from lines 6-10  14-18 but not from 11-13

User · Answer

As a side note  instead of having to type in the line numbers  just highlight the lines where you want to find replace in one of the visual modes    VISUAL mode  V  VISUAL BLOCK mode  Ctrl V  VISUAL LINE mode  Shift V  works best in your case    Once you selected the lines to replace  type your command    s  lt search string gt   lt replace string gt  g   You ll note that the range   lt    gt  will be inserted automatically for you      lt    gt s  lt search string gt   lt replace string gt  g   Here   lt  simply means first highlighted line  and   gt  means last highlighted line   Note that the behaviour might be unexpected when in NORMAL mode    lt  and   gt  point to the start and end of the last highlight done in one of the VISUAL modes  Instead  in NORMAL mode  the special line number   can be used  which simply means current line  Hence  you can find replace only on the current line like this     s  lt search string gt   lt replace string gt  g   Another thing to note is that inserting a second   between the range and the find replace command does no harm  in other words  these commands will still work      lt    gt  s  lt search string gt   lt replace string gt  g    s  lt search string gt   lt replace string gt  g

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Replace All     s foo bar g   Find each occurrence of  foo   in all lines   and replace it with  bar    For specific lines    6 10s foo bar g   Change each  foo  to  bar  for all lines from line 6 to line 10 inclusive

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sys sim source gm kg jl ls owow lsal  sys sim source gm kg jl ls owow lsal  sys sim source gm kg jl ls owow lsal  sys sim source gm kg jl ls owow lsal  sys sim source gm kg jl ls owow lsal  sys sim source gm kg jl ls owow lsal  sys sim source gm kg jl ls owow lsal  sys sim source gm kg jl ls owow lsal   Suppose if you want to replace the above with some other info   COMMAND   s   sys  sim  source  gm  kg  jl  ls  owow  lsal sys pkg mpu umc kdk  g   In this the above will be get replaced with  sys pkg mpu umc kdk

User · Answer

Search and replace   s search  search2  search3 replace gci  g   gt  global search c   gt  Ask for confirmation first i    gt  Case insensitive If you want direct replacement without confirmation  use below command   s search replace g  If you want confirmation for each replace then run the below command   s search replace gc  Ask for confirmation first  here search will be case insensitive    s search replace gci

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To answer this question    40 50s foo bar g  replace foo with bar in these lines between the 40th line and the 50th line inclusive   when execute this command you can currently in any line    50 40s foo bar g  also works  vim will ask you for comfirm and then do the replacement for you as if you have input the first command     50s foo bar g  replace foo with bar in these lines between the line you are currently in and the 50th line inclusive    if you are in a line AFTER the 50th line vim will ask for confirm again   To clearity the difference between vim and the vrapper plugin of Eclipse   Note that in varpper    50s foo bar g command will NOT work    50 40s foo bar g will work without asking for comfirmation    For Vrapper Version 0 74 0 or older

User · Answer

The   amp  amp  command repeats the last substitution with the same flags  You can supply the additional range s  to it  and concatenate as many as you like     6 10s  lt search string gt   lt replace string gt  g   14 18 amp  amp    If you have many ranges though  I d rather use a loop    for range in split  6 10 14 18    exe range  s  lt search string gt   lt replace string gt  g    endfor

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VI search and replace command examples  Let us say you would like to find a word called    foo    and replace with    bar      First hit  Esc  key  Type    colon  followed by  s foo bar  and hit  Enter  key    s foo bar

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We don t need to bother entering the current line number    If you would like to change each foo to bar for current line     and the two next lines   2   simply do       2s foo bar g   If you want to confirm before changes are made  replace g with gc        2s foo bar gc

User · Answer

You can do it with two find replace sequences     6 10s  lt search string gt   lt replace string gt  g    14 18s  lt search string gt   lt replace string gt  g   The second time all you need to adjust is the range so instead of typing it all out  I would recall the last command and edit just the range

User · Answer

In vim if you are confused which all lines will be affected  Use below      s foo bar gc     Change each  foo  to  bar   but ask for confirmation first  Press  y  for yes and  n  for no  Dont forget to save after that   wq

User · Answer

Specifying the range through visual selection is ok but when there are very simple operations over just a couple of lines that can be selected by an operator the best would be to apply these commands as operators   This sadly can t be done through standards vim commands  You could do a sort of workaround using the    filter  operator and any text object  For example  to apply the operation to a paragraph  you can do    ip   This has to be read as  Apply the operator   inside a paragraph   The filter operator starts command mode and automatically insert the range of lines followed by a literal     that you can delete just after  If you apply this  to the following paragraph   1 2  Repellendus qui velit vel ullam  3  ipsam sint modi  velit ipsam sint 4  modi  Debitis dolorum distinctio 5  mollitia vel ullam  Repellendus qui 6  Debitis dolorum distinctio mollitia 7  vel ullam  ipsam 8 9  More text around here   The result after pressing   ap  would be like        5   As the      point  means the current line  the range between the current line and the 5 lines after will be used for the operation  Now you can add the substitute command the same way as previously   The bad part is that this is not easier that selecting the text for latter applying the operator  The good part is that this can repeat the insertion of the range for other similar text ranges  in this case  paragraphs  with sightly different size  I e   if you later want to select the range bigger paragraph the     will to it right   Also  if you like the idea of using semantic text objects to select the range of operation  you can check my plugin EXtend vim that can do the same but in an easier manner

[vim] Find and replace strings in vim on multiple lines

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