Tip #340: Visual Select And Search

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Rating 13/4, Viewed by 1610

created:		October 10, 2002 18:59		complexity:		intermediate
author:		Chris Butler ([email protected])		as of Vim:		6.0

The following visual select and search map is a combination of information from Benji's vimrc file (vmap S y/<C-R>=escape(@",'/')<CR>) and a tip that mentions the "\n" to "\\\\n" substitution. It works for special characters and multiple lines. vmap \s y/\V<C-R>=substitute(escape(@",'/'),"\n","\\\\n","g")<CR>/<CR> Quick explanation: vmap visual map \s your choice y yank selected text / search delimiter \V no magic, just text <C-R>= expression substitute substitute "\n" for "\\\\n" escape escape '/' (delimiter) and '' in yanked text (@") <CR> end expression /<CR> search Warning: Folding will not match if the foldexpr expression is using getline() to match against a search pattern that spans multiple lines. Enjoy.

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Additional Notes

Chris Butler, October 11, 2002 14:23

Sorry, something was lost when I pasted it (besides the line format :) The substitute string is '/' - that's forward slash + backward slash. One needs to escape any '' (backslash) to nulify any specials.

Chris Butler, October 11, 2002 14:25

Let try that again ... Sorry, something was lost when I pasted it (besides the line format :) The substitute string is '/\' - that's forward slash + backward slash. One needs to escape any '\' (backslash) to nulify any specials.

David Fishburn, June 4, 2003 5:51

I have this in my vimrc file. It will deal with correctly escaping the string you have visually selected. This was hashed out on the vim mailing list a few months back, and this is the final version. It also maintains the register we pull the text into. " Courtesy of Michael Naumann, Jürgen Krämer " Visually select text, then search for it, forwards or backwards vmap <silent> * :<C-U>let old_reg=@"<cr> \gvy/<C-R><C-R>=substitute( \escape(@", '\\/.*$^~[]'), "\n$", "", "")<CR><CR> \:let @"=old_reg<cr> vmap <silent> # :<C-U>let old_reg=@"<cr> \gvy?<C-R><C-R>=substitute( \escape(@", '\\/.*$^~[]'), "\n$", "", "")<CR><CR> \:let @"=old_reg<cr>




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