How can I make my match non greedy in vim

Question

I have a big HTML file that has lots of markup that looks like this    lt p class  MsoNormal  style  margin  0in 0in 0pt   gt     lt span style  font-size  small  font-family  Times New Roman   gt stuff here lt  span gt   lt  p gt    I m trying to do a Vim search-and-replace to get rid of all class    and style    but I m having trouble making the match ungreedy   My first attempt was this   s style        g   but Vim doesn t seem to like the     Unfortunately removing the   makes the match too greedy   How can I make my match ungreedy

User · Answer

If you re more comfortable PCRE regex syntax  which   supports the non-greedy operator    as you asked in OP  and doesn t require backwhacking grouping and cardinality operators  an utterly counterintuitive vim syntax requirement since you re not matching literal characters but specifying operators   and you have  g vim compiled with perl feature  test using   ver and inspect features  if  perl is there you re good to go    try search replace using   perldo s      Example  Swap src and alt attributes in img tag    lt p class  logo  gt  lt a href     gt  lt img src   caminoglobal en includes themes camino images header logo png  alt    gt  lt  a gt  lt  p gt    perldo s  src        s  alt         2  1    lt p class  logo  gt  lt a href     gt  lt img alt    src   caminoglobal en includes themes camino images header logo png  gt  lt  a gt  lt  p gt

User · Answer

Non greedy search in vim is done using  -  operator  Like this    s style     -    g   just try    help non-greedy

User · Answer

I ve found that a good solution to this type of question is       sed        or perl if you prefer    IOW  rather than learning vim s regex peculiarities  use a tool you already know   Using perl would make the   modifier work to ungreedy the match

User · Answer

With  v  as suggested in several comments     s  v style class      -    g

User · Answer

Instead of    use    -     s style     -    g  Also  see  help non-greedy

User · Answer

What s wrong with   s style          g

User · Answer

G day   Vim s regexp processing is not too brilliant  I ve found that the regexp syntax for sed is about the right match for vim s capabilities   I usually set the search highlighting on   set hlsearch  and then play with the regexp after entering a slash to enter search mode   Edit  Mark  that trick to minimise greedy matching is also covered in Dale Dougherty s excellent book  Sed  amp  Awk   sanitised Amazon link    Chapter Three  Understanding Regular Expression Syntax  is an excellent intro to the more primitive regexp capabilities involved with sed and awk  Only a short read and highly recommended   HTH  cheers

User · Answer

Plugin eregex vim handles Perl-style non-greedy operators    and

[regex] How can I make my match non greedy in vim?

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