4.5. Substitution

Vim 101: Search and Replace

Search and replace

# first match on the current line
:s/search/replace/
# all matches on the current line
:s/search/replace/g
# every match in the file
:%s/search/replace/g # % is the same as 1,$
# search and replace by line numbers
:100,200s/search/replace/g
# case insensitive with i
:%s/search/replace/gi
# confirm each match with c
:%s/search/replace/gic

options for confirm

y               Yes; make this change.
n               No; skip this match.
a               All; make this change and all remaining ones without
                further confirmation.
q               Quit; don't make any more changes.
l               Last; make this change and then quit.
CTRL-E          Scroll the text one line up.
CTRL-Y          Scroll the text one line down.

Using register

# substitute with the content of register a
:%s/search/<C-r>a/g

Substitution with multiple files

# open multiple files
vim *.js
# list the buffers
:ls

Adding line breaks

:59,$s/$/\r  # add line breaks