How to Search in Vim

Today I show you how to search in vim and how to use search and replace in vim.
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#tut #vim #thelinuxcast

[glsek]

The tip with * and # is great! Thank you!

[linuxdabbler]

Hi Matt. just wanted to stop by and say congrats on 10K and I love your vim videos. You are a content generating machine! Much respect. keep it up buddy.

[brainstormsurge]

With search and replace (called substitute) the `/g` at the end when using `%` isn't needed. You only really use `/g` if you want to do a whole line instead of the first instance in a line. The `/G` at the end is the same as `%` and will do it globally if you forgot to at the `%` in the beginning so there's an instance of doing the same thing in multiple ways.

Another useful flag to give it is `/c` at the end as it give you "confirm mode" so you can confirm each instance you want to replace. Say it's a line with multiple instances of "so" or "because" because you like using it so much but you forgot to capitalize the beginning of a sentence each time you used it there but there are still a some instances inside sentences. You then run the command:

:s/so/So/gc

With that you will be able to confirm each instance in the line.

[zeocamo]

set ignorecase is nice, but what if you want to get the best of both worlds, use set smartcase if you use lower case it will ignore case and if you add a upper case letter then it will be search for case again

also set showmatch make the cursor jump to the first match making easy to see if you are searching for the right thing, it beep if nothing is found

[nbensa]

n vs N, because "*" searches forward and "#" searches backwards, that's why n <> N are ""reversed". Same for "/" and "?".

[damolin]

Great video Matt. I find for older system sublime text is much snappier and can do the same job for the most part.

[manojadikari]

Do you know a way to highlit multiple search patterns in different colors
Eg /\vgreen|blue|red
If you could do a video on that would be great. thanks

[CassyMorlock]

Is search and replace basically just sed? kinda looks like it.

[thingsiplay]

The reason why "n" and "N" is reversed in reverse search is, is easy. Because "n" is the next search result that you asked to look in reverse. It makes sense. Because if you search in reverse, then most likely you want go back a few steps backwards. And the easiest key is n and not N.
From logical standpoint, this makes sense. However, it might be unintuitive for you. It got me off guard too in the beginning. And in worse case you can still make remaps.

BTW for reverse search I use "?" question mark. Not sure if that is the default.

[ARose]

What color scheme are you using in your terminal Matt?

[sandeepvk]

Useful video. One thing is clear to me. VIM is not for me

[AndrewErwin]

Other than The Primagen, there are no actual proficient users. ;)

[hunhau]

Got one for you, how to CAT an encrypted vim text file.

[zeocamo]

when you make a back search then you are search for a word the is up in the document, so if the first result is not the one you of cuz use n to get the next in the backward dir.
and if you want to back trace then it N for that, this way it work the same for forward and backward search..

tl;dr: it is a feature and not a bug :)

[hectorcanizales]

if you don't mind sharing, what's your day job ?

[lucashandekyn]

I wanted to like the video but i just couldn't so let this comment be my like

[alexsnowblind]

finally I know how to remove those damned highlights 😄😄