Tip #464: search & replace the word under the cursor

tip karma

Rating 40/20, Viewed by 2646

created:		April 27, 2003 13:42		complexity:		intermediate
author:		maurice		as of Vim:		6.0

I have this usefull mapping in my vimrc: nmap ; :%s/\<<c-r>=expand("<cword>")<cr>\>/ Now, if you see a word 'foo' which should be replaced, you only have to put the cursor on it and type ';'. Then the command-prompt has already the annoying :%s/\<foo\>/ and you just have to enter your new word. For information: :help <c-r> :help expand

<<XSLT Mappings I use to speed up developing XSLT files. | generic xml imap to make an element of any word you type >>

Additional Notes

gmann, April 27, 2003 14:55

I am curious how this is more beneficial than cw ? Am I missing something? One more keystroke? Thanks for any advice.

maurice, April 27, 2003 15:08

As mentioned, this opens the prompt for search & replace, which applies to the whole buffer and not only for the one occurrence of the word.

Anonymous, April 27, 2003 17:14

your script is interesting, but non-standard, that's why it's not very useful

Anonymous, April 27, 2003 23:09

'cw' only changes the word at the current position, '%s' does theat for all occurances in the file. Well, what is 'standard' ? 'non-standard' may also be useful. I often found tips and scripts here rated useful, but not for me. So what about senseless 795,32 colour schemes which may be 'standard' but useless ? ;-)) Thomas

feral at firetop dot comthingie, April 28, 2003 1:47

Another way of accomplishing basically the same thing: If you do not specify the pattern for <kbd>:s</kbd> it will use register / (current search string), as such I've been <kbd>*:%s//whatever</kbd> whenever I have wanted to change all occurrences of a word. I had not really thought of using a nmap to construct the :substitute .. (By the by I have been mulling over menu entries) Related, use <kbd>&</kbd> as part of the replace string to modify your search string (see :h sub-replace-special) Also related consider this nmap that uses the contents of the unnamed register: <kbd>nmap ; :%s/<c-r>"/</kbd> Thanks for the tip Maurice! p.s. just pretend the html kbd tags did what they are supposed to and denote what to type (=

[email protected], April 28, 2003 2:44

Great idea! BTW you can use nmap ; :%s/\<<c-r><c-w>\>/ as well...

niklas, April 28, 2003 10:07

Nice tip. One thing though: nmapping ";" disables the default command for that key. That is "repeat last jump to character using f, F, t or T" (for which "," repeats in opposite direction). See ":help f" and the 5 related commands below that one in "motion.txt".

Maurice, April 28, 2003 11:06

Oh.. never used this jumps. But after trying them out it seems that I will do this in the future. Very cool :) Guess I have to map this replace-stuff to another key... What is this non-standard-thing? Thought that if its listed in the vim help, it is ok :)

gmann, April 30, 2003 20:06

Thanks for the clarification Maurice. The tip is quite nice, standard or not. I like the jumps as well (vi = very impressive). This would also be nice to map along with the AllBuffers method, can you think of how I can map this, so that I can do the same thing across all buffers which I have open? Something like the following (which doesn't work) map <M-t> :call AllBuffers(":%s/\<<c-r><c-w>\>/

Maurice, May 1, 2003 8:22

I don't know about a function 'AllBuffers'. But I think what you want is the bufdo-command. Your mapping would be something like this: map <M-t> :bufdo :%s/\<<c-r><c-w>\>/

[email protected], May 21, 2003 1:55

Great macro, thanks. I have a small question: When entering this line as it is to my .vimrc file, the last '/' "messes" the syntax of the configuration file. IE: it changes the colors of some of the following commands. This is probably due to the special role of '/' . I "solved" it by removing the '/' (and I enter it manually whenever I need to use the macro). Any better advice ? Regards, Jonathan Orlev.

[email protected], May 21, 2003 2:01

Anybody knows how I performe it, if I mark with ":v2w" 2words and put it directly in the command line for searching and replacing?

Maurice, June 1, 2003 9:32

> Anybody knows how I performe it, if I mark with ":v2w" 2words and put it directly in the command line for searching and replacing? For example with the help of a register: vnoremap <your-key> "ty:%s/<c-r>=@t<cr>/ But note that this will alter the register 't'. If you use XFree, where the clipboard is automatically set by selecting some text, you could also use the '*'-Register: vnoremap S <esc>:%s/<c-r>*/

[email protected], October 19, 2003 16:24

nnoremap ; :%s/\<<c-r><c-w>\>/ works well for me, it selects the current word and only replaces whole word matches, for example: $xml_parser = xml_parser_create(); .... if the cursor was on $xml_parser and you typed ';' only $xml_parser would be replaced, not xml_parser_create()

[email protected], May 9, 2006 22:03

This is the function I have been eagerly looking for! Thanks!




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