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annotate runtime/doc/pattern.txt @ 15033:f8b0f1e42f2c
Update runtime files.
commit https://github.com/vim/vim/commit/f0d58efc9dc46be37c629cbc99b4125448ca39fd
Author: Bram Moolenaar <Bram@vim.org>
Date: Fri Nov 16 16:13:44 2018 +0100
Update runtime files.
| author | Bram Moolenaar <Bram@vim.org> |
|---|---|
| date | Fri, 16 Nov 2018 16:15:07 +0100 |
| parents | 2f7e67dd088c |
| children | 97b40b4c6911 |
| rev | line source |
|---|---|
| 13963 | 1 *pattern.txt* For Vim version 8.1. Last change: 2018 Mar 13 |
| 7 | 2 |
| 3 | |
| 4 VIM REFERENCE MANUAL by Bram Moolenaar | |
| 5 | |
| 6 | |
| 7 Patterns and search commands *pattern-searches* | |
| 8 | |
| 9 The very basics can be found in section |03.9| of the user manual. A few more | |
| 10 explanations are in chapter 27 |usr_27.txt|. | |
| 11 | |
| 12 1. Search commands |search-commands| | |
| 13 2. The definition of a pattern |search-pattern| | |
| 14 3. Magic |/magic| | |
| 15 4. Overview of pattern items |pattern-overview| | |
| 16 5. Multi items |pattern-multi-items| | |
| 17 6. Ordinary atoms |pattern-atoms| | |
| 18 7. Ignoring case in a pattern |/ignorecase| | |
| 714 | 19 8. Composing characters |patterns-composing| |
| 20 9. Compare with Perl patterns |perl-patterns| | |
| 21 10. Highlighting matches |match-highlight| | |
| 7 | 22 |
| 23 ============================================================================== | |
| 3153 | 24 1. Search commands *search-commands* |
| 7 | 25 |
| 26 */* | |
| 27 /{pattern}[/]<CR> Search forward for the [count]'th occurrence of | |
| 28 {pattern} |exclusive|. | |
| 29 | |
| 30 /{pattern}/{offset}<CR> Search forward for the [count]'th occurrence of | |
| 31 {pattern} and go |{offset}| lines up or down. | |
| 32 |linewise|. | |
| 33 | |
| 34 */<CR>* | |
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35 /<CR> Search forward for the [count]'th occurrence of the |
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36 latest used pattern |last-pattern| with latest used |
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37 |{offset}|. |
| 7 | 38 |
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39 //{offset}<CR> Search forward for the [count]'th occurrence of the |
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40 latest used pattern |last-pattern| with new |
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41 |{offset}|. If {offset} is empty no offset is used. |
| 7 | 42 |
| 43 *?* | |
| 44 ?{pattern}[?]<CR> Search backward for the [count]'th previous | |
| 45 occurrence of {pattern} |exclusive|. | |
| 46 | |
| 47 ?{pattern}?{offset}<CR> Search backward for the [count]'th previous | |
| 48 occurrence of {pattern} and go |{offset}| lines up or | |
| 49 down |linewise|. | |
| 50 | |
| 51 *?<CR>* | |
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52 ?<CR> Search backward for the [count]'th occurrence of the |
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53 latest used pattern |last-pattern| with latest used |
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54 |{offset}|. |
| 7 | 55 |
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56 ??{offset}<CR> Search backward for the [count]'th occurrence of the |
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57 latest used pattern |last-pattern| with new |
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58 |{offset}|. If {offset} is empty no offset is used. |
| 7 | 59 |
| 60 *n* | |
| 61 n Repeat the latest "/" or "?" [count] times. | |
| 6647 | 62 If the cursor doesn't move the search is repeated with |
| 63 count + 1. | |
| 7 | 64 |last-pattern| {Vi: no count} |
| 65 | |
| 66 *N* | |
| 67 N Repeat the latest "/" or "?" [count] times in | |
| 68 opposite direction. |last-pattern| {Vi: no count} | |
| 69 | |
| 70 *star* *E348* *E349* | |
| 71 * Search forward for the [count]'th occurrence of the | |
| 72 word nearest to the cursor. The word used for the | |
| 73 search is the first of: | |
| 74 1. the keyword under the cursor |'iskeyword'| | |
| 75 2. the first keyword after the cursor, in the | |
| 76 current line | |
| 77 3. the non-blank word under the cursor | |
| 78 4. the first non-blank word after the cursor, | |
| 79 in the current line | |
| 80 Only whole keywords are searched for, like with the | |
| 81 command "/\<keyword\>". |exclusive| {not in Vi} | |
| 82 'ignorecase' is used, 'smartcase' is not. | |
| 83 | |
| 84 *#* | |
| 85 # Same as "*", but search backward. The pound sign | |
| 86 (character 163) also works. If the "#" key works as | |
| 87 backspace, try using "stty erase <BS>" before starting | |
| 88 Vim (<BS> is CTRL-H or a real backspace). {not in Vi} | |
| 89 | |
| 90 *gstar* | |
| 91 g* Like "*", but don't put "\<" and "\>" around the word. | |
| 92 This makes the search also find matches that are not a | |
| 93 whole word. {not in Vi} | |
| 94 | |
| 95 *g#* | |
| 96 g# Like "#", but don't put "\<" and "\>" around the word. | |
| 97 This makes the search also find matches that are not a | |
| 98 whole word. {not in Vi} | |
| 99 | |
| 100 *gd* | |
| 101 gd Goto local Declaration. When the cursor is on a local | |
| 102 variable, this command will jump to its declaration. | |
| 103 First Vim searches for the start of the current | |
| 104 function, just like "[[". If it is not found the | |
| 105 search stops in line 1. If it is found, Vim goes back | |
| 106 until a blank line is found. From this position Vim | |
| 107 searches for the keyword under the cursor, like with | |
| 108 "*", but lines that look like a comment are ignored | |
| 109 (see 'comments' option). | |
| 110 Note that this is not guaranteed to work, Vim does not | |
| 111 really check the syntax, it only searches for a match | |
| 112 with the keyword. If included files also need to be | |
| 113 searched use the commands listed in |include-search|. | |
| 114 After this command |n| searches forward for the next | |
| 115 match (not backward). | |
| 116 {not in Vi} | |
| 117 | |
| 118 *gD* | |
| 119 gD Goto global Declaration. When the cursor is on a | |
| 120 global variable that is defined in the file, this | |
| 121 command will jump to its declaration. This works just | |
| 122 like "gd", except that the search for the keyword | |
| 123 always starts in line 1. {not in Vi} | |
| 124 | |
| 523 | 125 *1gd* |
| 126 1gd Like "gd", but ignore matches inside a {} block that | |
| 127 ends before the cursor position. {not in Vi} | |
| 128 | |
| 129 *1gD* | |
| 130 1gD Like "gD", but ignore matches inside a {} block that | |
| 131 ends before the cursor position. {not in Vi} | |
| 132 | |
| 7 | 133 *CTRL-C* |
| 134 CTRL-C Interrupt current (search) command. Use CTRL-Break on | |
| 135 MS-DOS |dos-CTRL-Break|. | |
| 136 In Normal mode, any pending command is aborted. | |
| 137 | |
| 138 *:noh* *:nohlsearch* | |
| 139 :noh[lsearch] Stop the highlighting for the 'hlsearch' option. It | |
| 140 is automatically turned back on when using a search | |
| 141 command, or setting the 'hlsearch' option. | |
| 142 This command doesn't work in an autocommand, because | |
| 143 the highlighting state is saved and restored when | |
| 144 executing autocommands |autocmd-searchpat|. | |
| 1620 | 145 Same thing for when invoking a user function. |
| 7 | 146 |
| 147 While typing the search pattern the current match will be shown if the | |
| 148 'incsearch' option is on. Remember that you still have to finish the search | |
| 149 command with <CR> to actually position the cursor at the displayed match. Or | |
| 150 use <Esc> to abandon the search. | |
| 151 | |
| 152 All matches for the last used search pattern will be highlighted if you set | |
| 153 the 'hlsearch' option. This can be suspended with the |:nohlsearch| command. | |
| 154 | |
| 3153 | 155 When no match is found you get the error: *E486* Pattern not found |
| 156 Note that for the |:global| command this behaves like a normal message, for Vi | |
| 157 compatibility. For the |:s| command the "e" flag can be used to avoid the | |
| 158 error message |:s_flags|. | |
| 159 | |
| 7 | 160 *search-offset* *{offset}* |
| 161 These commands search for the specified pattern. With "/" and "?" an | |
| 162 additional offset may be given. There are two types of offsets: line offsets | |
| 163 and character offsets. {the character offsets are not in Vi} | |
| 164 | |
| 165 The offset gives the cursor position relative to the found match: | |
| 166 [num] [num] lines downwards, in column 1 | |
| 167 +[num] [num] lines downwards, in column 1 | |
| 168 -[num] [num] lines upwards, in column 1 | |
| 169 e[+num] [num] characters to the right of the end of the match | |
| 170 e[-num] [num] characters to the left of the end of the match | |
| 171 s[+num] [num] characters to the right of the start of the match | |
| 172 s[-num] [num] characters to the left of the start of the match | |
| 173 b[+num] [num] identical to s[+num] above (mnemonic: begin) | |
| 174 b[-num] [num] identical to s[-num] above (mnemonic: begin) | |
| 667 | 175 ;{pattern} perform another search, see |//;| |
| 7 | 176 |
| 177 If a '-' or '+' is given but [num] is omitted, a count of one will be used. | |
| 178 When including an offset with 'e', the search becomes inclusive (the | |
| 179 character the cursor lands on is included in operations). | |
| 180 | |
| 181 Examples: | |
| 182 | |
| 183 pattern cursor position ~ | |
| 184 /test/+1 one line below "test", in column 1 | |
| 185 /test/e on the last t of "test" | |
| 186 /test/s+2 on the 's' of "test" | |
| 187 /test/b-3 three characters before "test" | |
| 188 | |
| 189 If one of these commands is used after an operator, the characters between | |
| 190 the cursor position before and after the search is affected. However, if a | |
| 191 line offset is given, the whole lines between the two cursor positions are | |
| 192 affected. | |
| 193 | |
| 194 An example of how to search for matches with a pattern and change the match | |
| 195 with another word: > | |
| 196 /foo<CR> find "foo" | |
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197 c//e<CR> change until end of match |
| 7 | 198 bar<Esc> type replacement |
| 199 //<CR> go to start of next match | |
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200 c//e<CR> change until end of match |
| 7 | 201 beep<Esc> type another replacement |
| 202 etc. | |
| 203 < | |
| 204 *//;* *E386* | |
| 205 A very special offset is ';' followed by another search command. For example: > | |
| 206 | |
| 207 /test 1/;/test | |
| 208 /test.*/+1;?ing? | |
| 209 | |
| 210 The first one first finds the next occurrence of "test 1", and then the first | |
| 211 occurrence of "test" after that. | |
| 212 | |
| 213 This is like executing two search commands after each other, except that: | |
| 214 - It can be used as a single motion command after an operator. | |
| 215 - The direction for a following "n" or "N" command comes from the first | |
| 216 search command. | |
| 217 - When an error occurs the cursor is not moved at all. | |
| 218 | |
| 219 *last-pattern* | |
| 220 The last used pattern and offset are remembered. They can be used to repeat | |
| 221 the search, possibly in another direction or with another count. Note that | |
| 222 two patterns are remembered: One for 'normal' search commands and one for the | |
| 223 substitute command ":s". Each time an empty pattern is given, the previously | |
| 2725 | 224 used pattern is used. However, if there is no previous search command, a |
| 225 previous substitute pattern is used, if possible. | |
| 7 | 226 |
| 227 The 'magic' option sticks with the last used pattern. If you change 'magic', | |
| 228 this will not change how the last used pattern will be interpreted. | |
| 229 The 'ignorecase' option does not do this. When 'ignorecase' is changed, it | |
| 230 will result in the pattern to match other text. | |
| 231 | |
| 232 All matches for the last used search pattern will be highlighted if you set | |
| 233 the 'hlsearch' option. | |
| 234 | |
| 235 To clear the last used search pattern: > | |
| 236 :let @/ = "" | |
| 237 This will not set the pattern to an empty string, because that would match | |
| 238 everywhere. The pattern is really cleared, like when starting Vim. | |
| 239 | |
| 133 | 240 The search usually skips matches that don't move the cursor. Whether the next |
| 7 | 241 match is found at the next character or after the skipped match depends on the |
| 242 'c' flag in 'cpoptions'. See |cpo-c|. | |
| 243 with 'c' flag: "/..." advances 1 to 3 characters | |
| 244 without 'c' flag: "/..." advances 1 character | |
| 245 The unpredictability with the 'c' flag is caused by starting the search in the | |
| 246 first column, skipping matches until one is found past the cursor position. | |
| 247 | |
| 133 | 248 When searching backwards, searching starts at the start of the line, using the |
| 249 'c' flag in 'cpoptions' as described above. Then the last match before the | |
| 250 cursor position is used. | |
| 251 | |
| 7 | 252 In Vi the ":tag" command sets the last search pattern when the tag is searched |
| 253 for. In Vim this is not done, the previous search pattern is still remembered, | |
| 254 unless the 't' flag is present in 'cpoptions'. The search pattern is always | |
| 255 put in the search history. | |
| 256 | |
| 257 If the 'wrapscan' option is on (which is the default), searches wrap around | |
| 258 the end of the buffer. If 'wrapscan' is not set, the backward search stops | |
| 259 at the beginning and the forward search stops at the end of the buffer. If | |
| 260 'wrapscan' is set and the pattern was not found the error message "pattern | |
| 261 not found" is given, and the cursor will not be moved. If 'wrapscan' is not | |
| 262 set the message becomes "search hit BOTTOM without match" when searching | |
| 263 forward, or "search hit TOP without match" when searching backward. If | |
| 264 wrapscan is set and the search wraps around the end of the file the message | |
| 265 "search hit TOP, continuing at BOTTOM" or "search hit BOTTOM, continuing at | |
| 266 TOP" is given when searching backwards or forwards respectively. This can be | |
| 267 switched off by setting the 's' flag in the 'shortmess' option. The highlight | |
| 268 method 'w' is used for this message (default: standout). | |
| 269 | |
| 270 *search-range* | |
| 625 | 271 You can limit the search command "/" to a certain range of lines by including |
| 272 \%>l items. For example, to match the word "limit" below line 199 and above | |
| 273 line 300: > | |
| 274 /\%>199l\%<300llimit | |
| 275 Also see |/\%>l|. | |
| 276 | |
| 277 Another way is to use the ":substitute" command with the 'c' flag. Example: > | |
| 7 | 278 :.,300s/Pattern//gc |
| 279 This command will search from the cursor position until line 300 for | |
| 280 "Pattern". At the match, you will be asked to type a character. Type 'q' to | |
| 281 stop at this match, type 'n' to find the next match. | |
| 282 | |
| 283 The "*", "#", "g*" and "g#" commands look for a word near the cursor in this | |
| 284 order, the first one that is found is used: | |
| 285 - The keyword currently under the cursor. | |
| 286 - The first keyword to the right of the cursor, in the same line. | |
| 287 - The WORD currently under the cursor. | |
| 288 - The first WORD to the right of the cursor, in the same line. | |
| 289 The keyword may only contain letters and characters in 'iskeyword'. | |
| 290 The WORD may contain any non-blanks (<Tab>s and/or <Space>s). | |
| 291 Note that if you type with ten fingers, the characters are easy to remember: | |
| 292 the "#" is under your left hand middle finger (search to the left and up) and | |
| 293 the "*" is under your right hand middle finger (search to the right and down). | |
| 294 (this depends on your keyboard layout though). | |
| 295 | |
| 14372 | 296 *E956* |
| 297 In very rare cases a regular expression is used recursively. This can happen | |
| 15033 | 298 when executing a pattern takes a long time and when checking for messages on |
| 14372 | 299 channels a callback is invoked that also uses a pattern or an autocommand is |
| 300 triggered. In most cases this should be fine, but if a pattern is in use when | |
| 301 it's used again it fails. Usually this means there is something wrong with | |
| 302 the pattern. | |
| 303 | |
| 7 | 304 ============================================================================== |
| 305 2. The definition of a pattern *search-pattern* *pattern* *[pattern]* | |
| 306 *regular-expression* *regexp* *Pattern* | |
| 190 | 307 *E76* *E383* *E476* |
| 7 | 308 |
| 309 For starters, read chapter 27 of the user manual |usr_27.txt|. | |
| 310 | |
| 311 */bar* */\bar* */pattern* | |
| 312 1. A pattern is one or more branches, separated by "\|". It matches anything | |
| 313 that matches one of the branches. Example: "foo\|beep" matches "foo" and | |
| 314 matches "beep". If more than one branch matches, the first one is used. | |
| 315 | |
| 316 pattern ::= branch | |
| 317 or branch \| branch | |
| 318 or branch \| branch \| branch | |
| 319 etc. | |
| 320 | |
| 321 */branch* */\&* | |
| 322 2. A branch is one or more concats, separated by "\&". It matches the last | |
| 323 concat, but only if all the preceding concats also match at the same | |
| 324 position. Examples: | |
| 325 "foobeep\&..." matches "foo" in "foobeep". | |
| 326 ".*Peter\&.*Bob" matches in a line containing both "Peter" and "Bob" | |
| 327 | |
| 328 branch ::= concat | |
| 329 or concat \& concat | |
| 330 or concat \& concat \& concat | |
| 331 etc. | |
| 332 | |
| 333 */concat* | |
| 334 3. A concat is one or more pieces, concatenated. It matches a match for the | |
| 335 first piece, followed by a match for the second piece, etc. Example: | |
| 336 "f[0-9]b", first matches "f", then a digit and then "b". | |
| 337 | |
| 338 concat ::= piece | |
| 339 or piece piece | |
| 340 or piece piece piece | |
| 341 etc. | |
| 342 | |
| 343 */piece* | |
| 344 4. A piece is an atom, possibly followed by a multi, an indication of how many | |
| 345 times the atom can be matched. Example: "a*" matches any sequence of "a" | |
| 346 characters: "", "a", "aa", etc. See |/multi|. | |
| 347 | |
| 348 piece ::= atom | |
| 349 or atom multi | |
| 350 | |
| 351 */atom* | |
| 352 5. An atom can be one of a long list of items. Many atoms match one character | |
| 353 in the text. It is often an ordinary character or a character class. | |
| 354 Braces can be used to make a pattern into an atom. The "\z(\)" construct | |
| 355 is only for syntax highlighting. | |
| 356 | |
| 357 atom ::= ordinary-atom |/ordinary-atom| | |
| 358 or \( pattern \) |/\(| | |
| 359 or \%( pattern \) |/\%(| | |
| 360 or \z( pattern \) |/\z(| | |
| 361 | |
| 362 | |
| 5146 | 363 */\%#=* *two-engines* *NFA* |
| 4444 | 364 Vim includes two regexp engines: |
| 365 1. An old, backtracking engine that supports everything. | |
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366 2. A new, NFA engine that works much faster on some patterns, possibly slower |
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367 on some patterns. |
| 4444 | 368 |
| 369 Vim will automatically select the right engine for you. However, if you run | |
| 370 into a problem or want to specifically select one engine or the other, you can | |
| 371 prepend one of the following to the pattern: | |
| 372 | |
| 373 \%#=0 Force automatic selection. Only has an effect when | |
| 374 'regexpengine' has been set to a non-zero value. | |
| 375 \%#=1 Force using the old engine. | |
| 376 \%#=2 Force using the NFA engine. | |
| 377 | |
| 378 You can also use the 'regexpengine' option to change the default. | |
| 379 | |
| 380 *E864* *E868* *E874* *E875* *E876* *E877* *E878* | |
| 381 If selecting the NFA engine and it runs into something that is not implemented | |
| 382 the pattern will not match. This is only useful when debugging Vim. | |
| 383 | |
| 7 | 384 ============================================================================== |
| 840 | 385 3. Magic */magic* |
| 386 | |
| 387 Some characters in the pattern are taken literally. They match with the same | |
| 388 character in the text. When preceded with a backslash however, these | |
| 389 characters get a special meaning. | |
| 390 | |
| 391 Other characters have a special meaning without a backslash. They need to be | |
| 392 preceded with a backslash to match literally. | |
| 393 | |
| 394 If a character is taken literally or not depends on the 'magic' option and the | |
| 395 items mentioned next. | |
| 396 */\m* */\M* | |
| 397 Use of "\m" makes the pattern after it be interpreted as if 'magic' is set, | |
| 398 ignoring the actual value of the 'magic' option. | |
| 399 Use of "\M" makes the pattern after it be interpreted as if 'nomagic' is used. | |
| 400 */\v* */\V* | |
| 401 Use of "\v" means that in the pattern after it all ASCII characters except | |
| 402 '0'-'9', 'a'-'z', 'A'-'Z' and '_' have a special meaning. "very magic" | |
| 403 | |
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404 Use of "\V" means that in the pattern after it only the backslash and the |
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405 terminating character (/ or ?) has a special meaning. "very nomagic" |
| 840 | 406 |
| 407 Examples: | |
| 408 after: \v \m \M \V matches ~ | |
| 409 'magic' 'nomagic' | |
| 410 $ $ $ \$ matches end-of-line | |
| 411 . . \. \. matches any character | |
| 412 * * \* \* any number of the previous atom | |
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413 ~ ~ \~ \~ latest substitute string |
| 840 | 414 () \(\) \(\) \(\) grouping into an atom |
| 415 | \| \| \| separating alternatives | |
| 416 \a \a \a \a alphabetic character | |
| 417 \\ \\ \\ \\ literal backslash | |
| 418 \. \. . . literal dot | |
| 419 \{ { { { literal '{' | |
| 420 a a a a literal 'a' | |
| 421 | |
| 422 {only Vim supports \m, \M, \v and \V} | |
| 423 | |
| 424 It is recommended to always keep the 'magic' option at the default setting, | |
| 425 which is 'magic'. This avoids portability problems. To make a pattern immune | |
| 426 to the 'magic' option being set or not, put "\m" or "\M" at the start of the | |
| 427 pattern. | |
| 428 | |
| 429 ============================================================================== | |
| 7 | 430 4. Overview of pattern items *pattern-overview* |
| 4444 | 431 *E865* *E866* *E867* *E869* |
| 7 | 432 |
| 433 Overview of multi items. */multi* *E61* *E62* | |
| 4444 | 434 More explanation and examples below, follow the links. *E64* *E871* |
| 7 | 435 |
| 436 multi ~ | |
| 437 'magic' 'nomagic' matches of the preceding atom ~ | |
| 438 |/star| * \* 0 or more as many as possible | |
| 439 |/\+| \+ \+ 1 or more as many as possible (*) | |
| 440 |/\=| \= \= 0 or 1 as many as possible (*) | |
| 441 |/\?| \? \? 0 or 1 as many as possible (*) | |
| 442 | |
| 443 |/\{| \{n,m} \{n,m} n to m as many as possible (*) | |
| 444 \{n} \{n} n exactly (*) | |
| 445 \{n,} \{n,} at least n as many as possible (*) | |
| 446 \{,m} \{,m} 0 to m as many as possible (*) | |
| 447 \{} \{} 0 or more as many as possible (same as *) (*) | |
| 448 | |
| 449 |/\{-| \{-n,m} \{-n,m} n to m as few as possible (*) | |
| 450 \{-n} \{-n} n exactly (*) | |
| 451 \{-n,} \{-n,} at least n as few as possible (*) | |
| 452 \{-,m} \{-,m} 0 to m as few as possible (*) | |
| 453 \{-} \{-} 0 or more as few as possible (*) | |
| 454 | |
| 455 *E59* | |
| 456 |/\@>| \@> \@> 1, like matching a whole pattern (*) | |
| 457 |/\@=| \@= \@= nothing, requires a match |/zero-width| (*) | |
| 458 |/\@!| \@! \@! nothing, requires NO match |/zero-width| (*) | |
| 459 |/\@<=| \@<= \@<= nothing, requires a match behind |/zero-width| (*) | |
| 460 |/\@<!| \@<! \@<! nothing, requires NO match behind |/zero-width| (*) | |
| 461 | |
| 462 (*) {not in Vi} | |
| 463 | |
| 464 | |
| 465 Overview of ordinary atoms. */ordinary-atom* | |
| 466 More explanation and examples below, follow the links. | |
| 467 | |
| 468 ordinary atom ~ | |
| 469 magic nomagic matches ~ | |
| 470 |/^| ^ ^ start-of-line (at start of pattern) |/zero-width| | |
| 471 |/\^| \^ \^ literal '^' | |
| 472 |/\_^| \_^ \_^ start-of-line (used anywhere) |/zero-width| | |
| 473 |/$| $ $ end-of-line (at end of pattern) |/zero-width| | |
| 474 |/\$| \$ \$ literal '$' | |
| 475 |/\_$| \_$ \_$ end-of-line (used anywhere) |/zero-width| | |
| 476 |/.| . \. any single character (not an end-of-line) | |
| 477 |/\_.| \_. \_. any single character or end-of-line | |
| 478 |/\<| \< \< beginning of a word |/zero-width| | |
| 479 |/\>| \> \> end of a word |/zero-width| | |
| 480 |/\zs| \zs \zs anything, sets start of match | |
| 481 |/\ze| \ze \ze anything, sets end of match | |
| 482 |/\%^| \%^ \%^ beginning of file |/zero-width| *E71* | |
| 483 |/\%$| \%$ \%$ end of file |/zero-width| | |
| 640 | 484 |/\%V| \%V \%V inside Visual area |/zero-width| |
| 7 | 485 |/\%#| \%# \%# cursor position |/zero-width| |
| 640 | 486 |/\%'m| \%'m \%'m mark m position |/zero-width| |
| 7 | 487 |/\%l| \%23l \%23l in line 23 |/zero-width| |
| 488 |/\%c| \%23c \%23c in column 23 |/zero-width| | |
| 489 |/\%v| \%23v \%23v in virtual column 23 |/zero-width| | |
| 490 | |
| 20 | 491 Character classes {not in Vi}: */character-classes* |
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492 magic nomagic matches ~ |
| 7 | 493 |/\i| \i \i identifier character (see 'isident' option) |
| 494 |/\I| \I \I like "\i", but excluding digits | |
| 495 |/\k| \k \k keyword character (see 'iskeyword' option) | |
| 496 |/\K| \K \K like "\k", but excluding digits | |
| 497 |/\f| \f \f file name character (see 'isfname' option) | |
| 498 |/\F| \F \F like "\f", but excluding digits | |
| 499 |/\p| \p \p printable character (see 'isprint' option) | |
| 500 |/\P| \P \P like "\p", but excluding digits | |
| 501 |/\s| \s \s whitespace character: <Space> and <Tab> | |
| 502 |/\S| \S \S non-whitespace character; opposite of \s | |
| 503 |/\d| \d \d digit: [0-9] | |
| 504 |/\D| \D \D non-digit: [^0-9] | |
| 505 |/\x| \x \x hex digit: [0-9A-Fa-f] | |
| 506 |/\X| \X \X non-hex digit: [^0-9A-Fa-f] | |
| 507 |/\o| \o \o octal digit: [0-7] | |
| 508 |/\O| \O \O non-octal digit: [^0-7] | |
| 509 |/\w| \w \w word character: [0-9A-Za-z_] | |
| 510 |/\W| \W \W non-word character: [^0-9A-Za-z_] | |
| 511 |/\h| \h \h head of word character: [A-Za-z_] | |
| 512 |/\H| \H \H non-head of word character: [^A-Za-z_] | |
| 513 |/\a| \a \a alphabetic character: [A-Za-z] | |
| 514 |/\A| \A \A non-alphabetic character: [^A-Za-z] | |
| 515 |/\l| \l \l lowercase character: [a-z] | |
| 516 |/\L| \L \L non-lowercase character: [^a-z] | |
| 517 |/\u| \u \u uppercase character: [A-Z] | |
| 518 |/\U| \U \U non-uppercase character [^A-Z] | |
| 519 |/\_| \_x \_x where x is any of the characters above: character | |
| 520 class with end-of-line included | |
| 521 (end of character classes) | |
| 522 | |
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523 magic nomagic matches ~ |
| 7 | 524 |/\e| \e \e <Esc> |
| 525 |/\t| \t \t <Tab> | |
| 526 |/\r| \r \r <CR> | |
| 527 |/\b| \b \b <BS> | |
| 528 |/\n| \n \n end-of-line | |
| 529 |/~| ~ \~ last given substitute string | |
| 530 |/\1| \1 \1 same string as matched by first \(\) {not in Vi} | |
| 531 |/\2| \2 \2 Like "\1", but uses second \(\) | |
| 532 ... | |
| 533 |/\9| \9 \9 Like "\1", but uses ninth \(\) | |
| 534 *E68* | |
| 535 |/\z1| \z1 \z1 only for syntax highlighting, see |:syn-ext-match| | |
| 536 ... | |
| 537 |/\z1| \z9 \z9 only for syntax highlighting, see |:syn-ext-match| | |
| 538 | |
| 539 x x a character with no special meaning matches itself | |
| 540 | |
| 541 |/[]| [] \[] any character specified inside the [] | |
| 4119 | 542 |/\%[]| \%[] \%[] a sequence of optionally matched atoms |
| 7 | 543 |
| 1620 | 544 |/\c| \c \c ignore case, do not use the 'ignorecase' option |
| 545 |/\C| \C \C match case, do not use the 'ignorecase' option | |
| 4444 | 546 |/\Z| \Z \Z ignore differences in Unicode "combining characters". |
| 547 Useful when searching voweled Hebrew or Arabic text. | |
| 548 | |
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549 magic nomagic matches ~ |
| 7 | 550 |/\m| \m \m 'magic' on for the following chars in the pattern |
| 551 |/\M| \M \M 'magic' off for the following chars in the pattern | |
| 552 |/\v| \v \v the following chars in the pattern are "very magic" | |
| 553 |/\V| \V \V the following chars in the pattern are "very nomagic" | |
| 4444 | 554 |/\%#=| \%#=1 \%#=1 select regexp engine |/zero-width| |
| 7 | 555 |
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556 |/\%d| \%d \%d match specified decimal character (eg \%d123) |
| 24 | 557 |/\%x| \%x \%x match specified hex character (eg \%x2a) |
| 558 |/\%o| \%o \%o match specified octal character (eg \%o040) | |
| 559 |/\%u| \%u \%u match specified multibyte character (eg \%u20ac) | |
| 560 |/\%U| \%U \%U match specified large multibyte character (eg | |
| 561 \%U12345678) | |
| 5901 | 562 |/\%C| \%C \%C match any composing characters |
| 7 | 563 |
| 564 Example matches ~ | |
| 565 \<\I\i* or | |
| 566 \<\h\w* | |
| 567 \<[a-zA-Z_][a-zA-Z0-9_]* | |
| 568 An identifier (e.g., in a C program). | |
| 569 | |
| 570 \(\.$\|\. \) A period followed by <EOL> or a space. | |
| 571 | |
| 572 [.!?][])"']*\($\|[ ]\) A search pattern that finds the end of a sentence, | |
| 573 with almost the same definition as the ")" command. | |
| 574 | |
| 575 cat\Z Both "cat" and "càt" ("a" followed by 0x0300) | |
| 576 Does not match "càt" (character 0x00e0), even | |
| 577 though it may look the same. | |
| 578 | |
| 579 | |
| 580 ============================================================================== | |
| 581 5. Multi items *pattern-multi-items* | |
| 582 | |
| 583 An atom can be followed by an indication of how many times the atom can be | |
| 584 matched and in what way. This is called a multi. See |/multi| for an | |
| 585 overview. | |
| 586 | |
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587 */star* */\star* |
| 7 | 588 * (use \* when 'magic' is not set) |
| 589 Matches 0 or more of the preceding atom, as many as possible. | |
| 590 Example 'nomagic' matches ~ | |
| 591 a* a\* "", "a", "aa", "aaa", etc. | |
| 592 .* \.\* anything, also an empty string, no end-of-line | |
| 593 \_.* \_.\* everything up to the end of the buffer | |
| 594 \_.*END \_.\*END everything up to and including the last "END" | |
| 595 in the buffer | |
| 596 | |
| 597 Exception: When "*" is used at the start of the pattern or just after | |
| 598 "^" it matches the star character. | |
| 599 | |
| 600 Be aware that repeating "\_." can match a lot of text and take a long | |
| 601 time. For example, "\_.*END" matches all text from the current | |
| 602 position to the last occurrence of "END" in the file. Since the "*" | |
| 603 will match as many as possible, this first skips over all lines until | |
| 604 the end of the file and then tries matching "END", backing up one | |
| 605 character at a time. | |
| 606 | |
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607 */\+* |
| 7 | 608 \+ Matches 1 or more of the preceding atom, as many as possible. {not in |
| 609 Vi} | |
| 610 Example matches ~ | |
| 611 ^.\+$ any non-empty line | |
| 612 \s\+ white space of at least one character | |
| 613 | |
| 614 */\=* | |
| 615 \= Matches 0 or 1 of the preceding atom, as many as possible. {not in Vi} | |
| 616 Example matches ~ | |
| 617 foo\= "fo" and "foo" | |
| 618 | |
| 619 */\?* | |
| 620 \? Just like \=. Cannot be used when searching backwards with the "?" | |
| 621 command. {not in Vi} | |
| 622 | |
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623 */\{* *E60* *E554* *E870* |
| 7 | 624 \{n,m} Matches n to m of the preceding atom, as many as possible |
| 625 \{n} Matches n of the preceding atom | |
| 626 \{n,} Matches at least n of the preceding atom, as many as possible | |
| 627 \{,m} Matches 0 to m of the preceding atom, as many as possible | |
| 628 \{} Matches 0 or more of the preceding atom, as many as possible (like *) | |
| 629 */\{-* | |
| 630 \{-n,m} matches n to m of the preceding atom, as few as possible | |
| 631 \{-n} matches n of the preceding atom | |
| 632 \{-n,} matches at least n of the preceding atom, as few as possible | |
| 633 \{-,m} matches 0 to m of the preceding atom, as few as possible | |
| 634 \{-} matches 0 or more of the preceding atom, as few as possible | |
| 635 {Vi does not have any of these} | |
| 636 | |
| 168 | 637 n and m are positive decimal numbers or zero |
| 1125 | 638 *non-greedy* |
| 7 | 639 If a "-" appears immediately after the "{", then a shortest match |
| 640 first algorithm is used (see example below). In particular, "\{-}" is | |
| 641 the same as "*" but uses the shortest match first algorithm. BUT: A | |
| 642 match that starts earlier is preferred over a shorter match: "a\{-}b" | |
| 643 matches "aaab" in "xaaab". | |
| 644 | |
| 645 Example matches ~ | |
| 646 ab\{2,3}c "abbc" or "abbbc" | |
| 1620 | 647 a\{5} "aaaaa" |
| 648 ab\{2,}c "abbc", "abbbc", "abbbbc", etc. | |
| 649 ab\{,3}c "ac", "abc", "abbc" or "abbbc" | |
| 7 | 650 a[bc]\{3}d "abbbd", "abbcd", "acbcd", "acccd", etc. |
| 651 a\(bc\)\{1,2}d "abcd" or "abcbcd" | |
| 652 a[bc]\{-}[cd] "abc" in "abcd" | |
| 653 a[bc]*[cd] "abcd" in "abcd" | |
| 654 | |
| 655 The } may optionally be preceded with a backslash: \{n,m\}. | |
| 656 | |
| 657 */\@=* | |
| 658 \@= Matches the preceding atom with zero width. {not in Vi} | |
| 659 Like "(?=pattern)" in Perl. | |
| 660 Example matches ~ | |
| 661 foo\(bar\)\@= "foo" in "foobar" | |
| 662 foo\(bar\)\@=foo nothing | |
| 663 */zero-width* | |
| 664 When using "\@=" (or "^", "$", "\<", "\>") no characters are included | |
| 665 in the match. These items are only used to check if a match can be | |
| 666 made. This can be tricky, because a match with following items will | |
| 667 be done in the same position. The last example above will not match | |
| 668 "foobarfoo", because it tries match "foo" in the same position where | |
| 669 "bar" matched. | |
| 670 | |
| 671 Note that using "\&" works the same as using "\@=": "foo\&.." is the | |
| 672 same as "\(foo\)\@=..". But using "\&" is easier, you don't need the | |
| 673 braces. | |
| 674 | |
| 675 | |
| 676 */\@!* | |
| 677 \@! Matches with zero width if the preceding atom does NOT match at the | |
| 678 current position. |/zero-width| {not in Vi} | |
| 3513 | 679 Like "(?!pattern)" in Perl. |
| 7 | 680 Example matches ~ |
| 681 foo\(bar\)\@! any "foo" not followed by "bar" | |
| 3513 | 682 a.\{-}p\@! "a", "ap", "app", "appp", etc. not immediately |
| 2908 | 683 followed by a "p" |
| 7 | 684 if \(\(then\)\@!.\)*$ "if " not followed by "then" |
| 685 | |
| 686 Using "\@!" is tricky, because there are many places where a pattern | |
| 687 does not match. "a.*p\@!" will match from an "a" to the end of the | |
| 688 line, because ".*" can match all characters in the line and the "p" | |
| 689 doesn't match at the end of the line. "a.\{-}p\@!" will match any | |
| 3513 | 690 "a", "ap", "app", etc. that isn't followed by a "p", because the "." |
| 7 | 691 can match a "p" and "p\@!" doesn't match after that. |
| 692 | |
| 693 You can't use "\@!" to look for a non-match before the matching | |
| 694 position: "\(foo\)\@!bar" will match "bar" in "foobar", because at the | |
| 695 position where "bar" matches, "foo" does not match. To avoid matching | |
| 696 "foobar" you could use "\(foo\)\@!...bar", but that doesn't match a | |
| 237 | 697 bar at the start of a line. Use "\(foo\)\@<!bar". |
| 7 | 698 |
| 2788 | 699 Useful example: to find "foo" in a line that does not contain "bar": > |
| 700 /^\%(.*bar\)\@!.*\zsfoo | |
| 701 < This pattern first checks that there is not a single position in the | |
| 702 line where "bar" matches. If ".*bar" matches somewhere the \@! will | |
| 703 reject the pattern. When there is no match any "foo" will be found. | |
| 704 The "\zs" is to have the match start just before "foo". | |
| 705 | |
| 7 | 706 */\@<=* |
| 707 \@<= Matches with zero width if the preceding atom matches just before what | |
| 708 follows. |/zero-width| {not in Vi} | |
| 3513 | 709 Like "(?<=pattern)" in Perl, but Vim allows non-fixed-width patterns. |
| 7 | 710 Example matches ~ |
| 711 \(an\_s\+\)\@<=file "file" after "an" and white space or an | |
| 712 end-of-line | |
| 713 For speed it's often much better to avoid this multi. Try using "\zs" | |
| 714 instead |/\zs|. To match the same as the above example: | |
| 715 an\_s\+\zsfile | |
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716 At least set a limit for the look-behind, see below. |
| 7 | 717 |
| 718 "\@<=" and "\@<!" check for matches just before what follows. | |
| 719 Theoretically these matches could start anywhere before this position. | |
| 720 But to limit the time needed, only the line where what follows matches | |
| 721 is searched, and one line before that (if there is one). This should | |
| 722 be sufficient to match most things and not be too slow. | |
| 6153 | 723 |
| 724 In the old regexp engine the part of the pattern after "\@<=" and | |
| 725 "\@<!" are checked for a match first, thus things like "\1" don't work | |
| 726 to reference \(\) inside the preceding atom. It does work the other | |
| 727 way around: | |
| 728 Bad example matches ~ | |
| 729 \%#=1\1\@<=,\([a-z]\+\) ",abc" in "abc,abc" | |
| 730 | |
| 731 However, the new regexp engine works differently, it is better to not | |
| 732 rely on this behavior, do not use \@<= if it can be avoided: | |
| 733 Example matches ~ | |
| 734 \([a-z]\+\)\zs,\1 ",abc" in "abc,abc" | |
| 7 | 735 |
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736 \@123<= |
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737 Like "\@<=" but only look back 123 bytes. This avoids trying lots |
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738 of matches that are known to fail and make executing the pattern very |
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739 slow. Example, check if there is a "<" just before "span": |
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740 /<\@1<=span |
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741 This will try matching "<" only one byte before "span", which is the |
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742 only place that works anyway. |
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743 After crossing a line boundary, the limit is relative to the end of |
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744 the line. Thus the characters at the start of the line with the match |
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745 are not counted (this is just to keep it simple). |
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746 The number zero is the same as no limit. |
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747 |
| 7 | 748 */\@<!* |
| 749 \@<! Matches with zero width if the preceding atom does NOT match just | |
| 750 before what follows. Thus this matches if there is no position in the | |
| 751 current or previous line where the atom matches such that it ends just | |
| 752 before what follows. |/zero-width| {not in Vi} | |
| 3513 | 753 Like "(?<!pattern)" in Perl, but Vim allows non-fixed-width patterns. |
| 7 | 754 The match with the preceding atom is made to end just before the match |
| 755 with what follows, thus an atom that ends in ".*" will work. | |
| 756 Warning: This can be slow (because many positions need to be checked | |
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757 for a match). Use a limit if you can, see below. |
| 7 | 758 Example matches ~ |
| 759 \(foo\)\@<!bar any "bar" that's not in "foobar" | |
| 1620 | 760 \(\/\/.*\)\@<!in "in" which is not after "//" |
| 7 | 761 |
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762 \@123<! |
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763 Like "\@<!" but only look back 123 bytes. This avoids trying lots of |
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764 matches that are known to fail and make executing the pattern very |
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765 slow. |
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766 |
| 7 | 767 */\@>* |
| 768 \@> Matches the preceding atom like matching a whole pattern. {not in Vi} | |
| 1620 | 769 Like "(?>pattern)" in Perl. |
| 7 | 770 Example matches ~ |
| 771 \(a*\)\@>a nothing (the "a*" takes all the "a"'s, there can't be | |
| 772 another one following) | |
| 773 | |
| 774 This matches the preceding atom as if it was a pattern by itself. If | |
| 775 it doesn't match, there is no retry with shorter sub-matches or | |
| 776 anything. Observe this difference: "a*b" and "a*ab" both match | |
| 777 "aaab", but in the second case the "a*" matches only the first two | |
| 778 "a"s. "\(a*\)\@>ab" will not match "aaab", because the "a*" matches | |
| 779 the "aaa" (as many "a"s as possible), thus the "ab" can't match. | |
| 780 | |
| 781 | |
| 782 ============================================================================== | |
| 783 6. Ordinary atoms *pattern-atoms* | |
| 784 | |
| 785 An ordinary atom can be: | |
| 786 | |
| 787 */^* | |
| 788 ^ At beginning of pattern or after "\|", "\(", "\%(" or "\n": matches | |
| 789 start-of-line; at other positions, matches literal '^'. |/zero-width| | |
| 790 Example matches ~ | |
| 791 ^beep( the start of the C function "beep" (probably). | |
| 792 | |
| 793 */\^* | |
| 794 \^ Matches literal '^'. Can be used at any position in the pattern. | |
| 795 | |
| 796 */\_^* | |
| 797 \_^ Matches start-of-line. |/zero-width| Can be used at any position in | |
| 798 the pattern. | |
| 799 Example matches ~ | |
| 800 \_s*\_^foo white space and blank lines and then "foo" at | |
| 801 start-of-line | |
| 802 | |
| 803 */$* | |
| 1620 | 804 $ At end of pattern or in front of "\|", "\)" or "\n" ('magic' on): |
| 7 | 805 matches end-of-line <EOL>; at other positions, matches literal '$'. |
| 806 |/zero-width| | |
| 807 | |
| 808 */\$* | |
| 809 \$ Matches literal '$'. Can be used at any position in the pattern. | |
| 810 | |
| 811 */\_$* | |
| 812 \_$ Matches end-of-line. |/zero-width| Can be used at any position in the | |
| 813 pattern. Note that "a\_$b" never matches, since "b" cannot match an | |
| 814 end-of-line. Use "a\nb" instead |/\n|. | |
| 815 Example matches ~ | |
| 816 foo\_$\_s* "foo" at end-of-line and following white space and | |
| 817 blank lines | |
| 818 | |
| 819 . (with 'nomagic': \.) */.* */\.* | |
| 820 Matches any single character, but not an end-of-line. | |
| 821 | |
| 822 */\_.* | |
| 823 \_. Matches any single character or end-of-line. | |
| 824 Careful: "\_.*" matches all text to the end of the buffer! | |
| 825 | |
| 826 */\<* | |
| 827 \< Matches the beginning of a word: The next char is the first char of a | |
| 828 word. The 'iskeyword' option specifies what is a word character. | |
| 829 |/zero-width| | |
| 830 | |
| 831 */\>* | |
| 832 \> Matches the end of a word: The previous char is the last char of a | |
| 237 | 833 word. The 'iskeyword' option specifies what is a word character. |
| 7 | 834 |/zero-width| |
| 835 | |
| 836 */\zs* | |
| 837 \zs Matches at any position, and sets the start of the match there: The | |
| 838 next char is the first char of the whole match. |/zero-width| | |
| 839 Example: > | |
| 840 /^\s*\zsif | |
| 841 < matches an "if" at the start of a line, ignoring white space. | |
| 842 Can be used multiple times, the last one encountered in a matching | |
| 237 | 843 branch is used. Example: > |
| 7 | 844 /\(.\{-}\zsFab\)\{3} |
| 845 < Finds the third occurrence of "Fab". | |
| 6180 | 846 This cannot be followed by a multi. *E888* |
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847 {not in Vi} {not available when compiled without the |+syntax| feature} |
| 7 | 848 */\ze* |
| 849 \ze Matches at any position, and sets the end of the match there: The | |
| 850 previous char is the last char of the whole match. |/zero-width| | |
| 851 Can be used multiple times, the last one encountered in a matching | |
| 852 branch is used. | |
| 853 Example: "end\ze\(if\|for\)" matches the "end" in "endif" and | |
| 854 "endfor". | |
| 6213 | 855 This cannot be followed by a multi. |E888| |
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856 {not in Vi} {not available when compiled without the |+syntax| feature} |
| 7 | 857 |
| 858 */\%^* *start-of-file* | |
| 859 \%^ Matches start of the file. When matching with a string, matches the | |
| 860 start of the string. {not in Vi} | |
| 861 For example, to find the first "VIM" in a file: > | |
| 862 /\%^\_.\{-}\zsVIM | |
| 863 < | |
| 864 */\%$* *end-of-file* | |
| 865 \%$ Matches end of the file. When matching with a string, matches the | |
| 866 end of the string. {not in Vi} | |
| 867 Note that this does NOT find the last "VIM" in a file: > | |
| 868 /VIM\_.\{-}\%$ | |
| 869 < It will find the next VIM, because the part after it will always | |
| 870 match. This one will find the last "VIM" in the file: > | |
| 871 /VIM\ze\(\(VIM\)\@!\_.\)*\%$ | |
| 872 < This uses |/\@!| to ascertain that "VIM" does NOT match in any | |
| 873 position after the first "VIM". | |
| 874 Searching from the end of the file backwards is easier! | |
| 875 | |
| 640 | 876 */\%V* |
| 877 \%V Match inside the Visual area. When Visual mode has already been | |
| 878 stopped match in the area that |gv| would reselect. | |
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879 This is a |/zero-width| match. To make sure the whole pattern is |
| 11062 | 880 inside the Visual area put it at the start and just before the end of |
| 881 the pattern, e.g.: > | |
| 882 /\%Vfoo.*ba\%Vr | |
| 11160 | 883 < This also works if only "foo bar" was Visually selected. This: > |
| 884 /\%Vfoo.*bar\%V | |
| 11062 | 885 < would match "foo bar" if the Visual selection continues after the "r". |
| 886 Only works for the current buffer. | |
| 640 | 887 |
| 7 | 888 */\%#* *cursor-position* |
| 889 \%# Matches with the cursor position. Only works when matching in a | |
| 890 buffer displayed in a window. {not in Vi} | |
| 891 WARNING: When the cursor is moved after the pattern was used, the | |
| 892 result becomes invalid. Vim doesn't automatically update the matches. | |
| 893 This is especially relevant for syntax highlighting and 'hlsearch'. | |
| 894 In other words: When the cursor moves the display isn't updated for | |
| 895 this change. An update is done for lines which are changed (the whole | |
| 896 line is updated) or when using the |CTRL-L| command (the whole screen | |
| 897 is updated). Example, to highlight the word under the cursor: > | |
| 898 /\k*\%#\k* | |
| 899 < When 'hlsearch' is set and you move the cursor around and make changes | |
| 900 this will clearly show when the match is updated or not. | |
| 901 | |
| 640 | 902 */\%'m* */\%<'m* */\%>'m* |
| 903 \%'m Matches with the position of mark m. | |
| 904 \%<'m Matches before the position of mark m. | |
| 905 \%>'m Matches after the position of mark m. | |
| 906 Example, to highlight the text from mark 's to 'e: > | |
| 907 /.\%>'s.*\%<'e.. | |
| 908 < Note that two dots are required to include mark 'e in the match. That | |
| 909 is because "\%<'e" matches at the character before the 'e mark, and | |
| 910 since it's a |/zero-width| match it doesn't include that character. | |
| 911 {not in Vi} | |
| 912 WARNING: When the mark is moved after the pattern was used, the result | |
| 913 becomes invalid. Vim doesn't automatically update the matches. | |
| 651 | 914 Similar to moving the cursor for "\%#" |/\%#|. |
| 640 | 915 |
| 13231 | 916 */\%l* */\%>l* */\%<l* *E951* |
| 7 | 917 \%23l Matches in a specific line. |
| 625 | 918 \%<23l Matches above a specific line (lower line number). |
| 919 \%>23l Matches below a specific line (higher line number). | |
| 7 | 920 These three can be used to match specific lines in a buffer. The "23" |
| 921 can be any line number. The first line is 1. {not in Vi} | |
| 922 WARNING: When inserting or deleting lines Vim does not automatically | |
| 923 update the matches. This means Syntax highlighting quickly becomes | |
| 924 wrong. | |
| 925 Example, to highlight the line where the cursor currently is: > | |
| 926 :exe '/\%' . line(".") . 'l.*' | |
| 927 < When 'hlsearch' is set and you move the cursor around and make changes | |
| 928 this will clearly show when the match is updated or not. | |
| 929 | |
| 930 */\%c* */\%>c* */\%<c* | |
| 931 \%23c Matches in a specific column. | |
| 932 \%<23c Matches before a specific column. | |
| 933 \%>23c Matches after a specific column. | |
| 934 These three can be used to match specific columns in a buffer or | |
| 935 string. The "23" can be any column number. The first column is 1. | |
| 936 Actually, the column is the byte number (thus it's not exactly right | |
| 937 for multi-byte characters). {not in Vi} | |
| 938 WARNING: When inserting or deleting text Vim does not automatically | |
| 939 update the matches. This means Syntax highlighting quickly becomes | |
| 940 wrong. | |
| 941 Example, to highlight the column where the cursor currently is: > | |
| 942 :exe '/\%' . col(".") . 'c' | |
| 943 < When 'hlsearch' is set and you move the cursor around and make changes | |
| 944 this will clearly show when the match is updated or not. | |
| 945 Example for matching a single byte in column 44: > | |
| 946 /\%>43c.\%<46c | |
| 947 < Note that "\%<46c" matches in column 45 when the "." matches a byte in | |
| 948 column 44. | |
| 949 */\%v* */\%>v* */\%<v* | |
| 950 \%23v Matches in a specific virtual column. | |
| 951 \%<23v Matches before a specific virtual column. | |
| 952 \%>23v Matches after a specific virtual column. | |
| 953 These three can be used to match specific virtual columns in a buffer | |
| 954 or string. When not matching with a buffer in a window, the option | |
| 955 values of the current window are used (e.g., 'tabstop'). | |
| 956 The "23" can be any column number. The first column is 1. | |
| 957 Note that some virtual column positions will never match, because they | |
| 1270 | 958 are halfway through a tab or other character that occupies more than |
| 959 one screen character. {not in Vi} | |
| 7 | 960 WARNING: When inserting or deleting text Vim does not automatically |
| 283 | 961 update highlighted matches. This means Syntax highlighting quickly |
| 962 becomes wrong. | |
| 1620 | 963 Example, to highlight all the characters after virtual column 72: > |
| 7 | 964 /\%>72v.* |
| 965 < When 'hlsearch' is set and you move the cursor around and make changes | |
| 966 this will clearly show when the match is updated or not. | |
| 967 To match the text up to column 17: > | |
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968 /^.*\%17v |
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969 < Column 17 is not included, because this is a |/zero-width| match. To |
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970 include the column use: > |
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971 /^.*\%17v. |
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972 < This command does the same thing, but also matches when there is no |
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973 character in column 17: > |
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974 /^.*\%<18v. |
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975 < Note that without the "^" to anchor the match in the first column, |
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976 this will also highlight column 17: > |
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977 /.*\%17v |
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978 < Column 17 is highlighted by 'hlsearch' because there is another match |
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979 where ".*" matches zero characters. |
| 7 | 980 < |
| 981 | |
| 982 Character classes: {not in Vi} | |
| 983 \i identifier character (see 'isident' option) */\i* | |
| 984 \I like "\i", but excluding digits */\I* | |
| 985 \k keyword character (see 'iskeyword' option) */\k* | |
| 986 \K like "\k", but excluding digits */\K* | |
| 987 \f file name character (see 'isfname' option) */\f* | |
| 988 \F like "\f", but excluding digits */\F* | |
| 989 \p printable character (see 'isprint' option) */\p* | |
| 990 \P like "\p", but excluding digits */\P* | |
| 991 | |
| 992 NOTE: the above also work for multi-byte characters. The ones below only | |
| 993 match ASCII characters, as indicated by the range. | |
| 994 | |
| 995 *whitespace* *white-space* | |
| 996 \s whitespace character: <Space> and <Tab> */\s* | |
| 997 \S non-whitespace character; opposite of \s */\S* | |
| 998 \d digit: [0-9] */\d* | |
| 999 \D non-digit: [^0-9] */\D* | |
| 1000 \x hex digit: [0-9A-Fa-f] */\x* | |
| 1001 \X non-hex digit: [^0-9A-Fa-f] */\X* | |
| 1002 \o octal digit: [0-7] */\o* | |
| 1003 \O non-octal digit: [^0-7] */\O* | |
| 1004 \w word character: [0-9A-Za-z_] */\w* | |
| 1005 \W non-word character: [^0-9A-Za-z_] */\W* | |
| 1006 \h head of word character: [A-Za-z_] */\h* | |
| 1007 \H non-head of word character: [^A-Za-z_] */\H* | |
| 1008 \a alphabetic character: [A-Za-z] */\a* | |
| 1009 \A non-alphabetic character: [^A-Za-z] */\A* | |
| 1010 \l lowercase character: [a-z] */\l* | |
| 1011 \L non-lowercase character: [^a-z] */\L* | |
| 1012 \u uppercase character: [A-Z] */\u* | |
| 3224 | 1013 \U non-uppercase character: [^A-Z] */\U* |
| 7 | 1014 |
| 1015 NOTE: Using the atom is faster than the [] form. | |
| 1016 | |
| 1017 NOTE: 'ignorecase', "\c" and "\C" are not used by character classes. | |
| 1018 | |
| 1019 */\_* *E63* */\_i* */\_I* */\_k* */\_K* */\_f* */\_F* | |
| 1020 */\_p* */\_P* */\_s* */\_S* */\_d* */\_D* */\_x* */\_X* | |
| 1021 */\_o* */\_O* */\_w* */\_W* */\_h* */\_H* */\_a* */\_A* | |
| 1022 */\_l* */\_L* */\_u* */\_U* | |
| 1023 \_x Where "x" is any of the characters above: The character class with | |
| 1024 end-of-line added | |
| 1025 (end of character classes) | |
| 1026 | |
| 1027 \e matches <Esc> */\e* | |
| 1028 \t matches <Tab> */\t* | |
| 1029 \r matches <CR> */\r* | |
| 1030 \b matches <BS> */\b* | |
| 1031 \n matches an end-of-line */\n* | |
| 1032 When matching in a string instead of buffer text a literal newline | |
| 1033 character is matched. | |
| 1034 | |
| 1035 ~ matches the last given substitute string */~* */\~* | |
| 1036 | |
| 1037 \(\) A pattern enclosed by escaped parentheses. */\(* */\(\)* */\)* | |
| 4444 | 1038 E.g., "\(^a\)" matches 'a' at the start of a line. |
| 1039 *E51* *E54* *E55* *E872* *E873* | |
| 7 | 1040 |
| 1041 \1 Matches the same string that was matched by */\1* *E65* | |
| 1042 the first sub-expression in \( and \). {not in Vi} | |
| 1043 Example: "\([a-z]\).\1" matches "ata", "ehe", "tot", etc. | |
| 1044 \2 Like "\1", but uses second sub-expression, */\2* | |
| 1045 ... */\3* | |
| 1046 \9 Like "\1", but uses ninth sub-expression. */\9* | |
| 1047 Note: The numbering of groups is done based on which "\(" comes first | |
| 1048 in the pattern (going left to right), NOT based on what is matched | |
| 1049 first. | |
| 1050 | |
| 1051 \%(\) A pattern enclosed by escaped parentheses. */\%(\)* */\%(* *E53* | |
| 1052 Just like \(\), but without counting it as a sub-expression. This | |
| 1053 allows using more groups and it's a little bit faster. | |
| 1054 {not in Vi} | |
| 1055 | |
| 1056 x A single character, with no special meaning, matches itself | |
| 1057 | |
| 1058 */\* */\\* | |
| 1059 \x A backslash followed by a single character, with no special meaning, | |
| 1060 is reserved for future expansions | |
| 1061 | |
| 1062 [] (with 'nomagic': \[]) */[]* */\[]* */\_[]* */collection* | |
| 1063 \_[] | |
| 237 | 1064 A collection. This is a sequence of characters enclosed in brackets. |
| 7 | 1065 It matches any single character in the collection. |
| 1066 Example matches ~ | |
| 1067 [xyz] any 'x', 'y' or 'z' | |
| 1068 [a-zA-Z]$ any alphabetic character at the end of a line | |
| 1069 \c[a-z]$ same | |
| 4073 | 1070 [А-яЁё] Russian alphabet (with utf-8 and cp1251) |
| 1071 | |
| 1125 | 1072 */[\n]* |
| 7 | 1073 With "\_" prepended the collection also includes the end-of-line. |
| 1074 The same can be done by including "\n" in the collection. The | |
| 1075 end-of-line is also matched when the collection starts with "^"! Thus | |
| 1076 "\_[^ab]" matches the end-of-line and any character but "a" and "b". | |
| 1077 This makes it Vi compatible: Without the "\_" or "\n" the collection | |
| 1078 does not match an end-of-line. | |
| 484 | 1079 *E769* |
| 481 | 1080 When the ']' is not there Vim will not give an error message but |
| 484 | 1081 assume no collection is used. Useful to search for '['. However, you |
| 6697 | 1082 do get E769 for internal searching. And be aware that in a |
| 1083 `:substitute` command the whole command becomes the pattern. E.g. | |
| 1084 ":s/[/x/" searches for "[/x" and replaces it with nothing. It does | |
| 1085 not search for "[" and replaces it with "x"! | |
| 481 | 1086 |
| 11518 | 1087 *E944* *E945* |
| 7 | 1088 If the sequence begins with "^", it matches any single character NOT |
| 1089 in the collection: "[^xyz]" matches anything but 'x', 'y' and 'z'. | |
| 1090 - If two characters in the sequence are separated by '-', this is | |
| 1091 shorthand for the full list of ASCII characters between them. E.g., | |
| 11518 | 1092 "[0-9]" matches any decimal digit. If the starting character exceeds |
| 1093 the ending character, e.g. [c-a], E944 occurs. Non-ASCII characters | |
| 1094 can be used, but the character values must not be more than 256 apart | |
| 1095 in the old regexp engine. For example, searching by [\u3000-\u4000] | |
| 1096 after setting re=1 emits a E945 error. Prepending \%#=2 will fix it. | |
| 7 | 1097 - A character class expression is evaluated to the set of characters |
| 1098 belonging to that character class. The following character classes | |
| 1099 are supported: | |
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1100 Name Func Contents ~ |
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1101 *[:alnum:]* [:alnum:] isalnum ASCII letters and digits |
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1102 *[:alpha:]* [:alpha:] isalpha ASCII letters |
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1103 *[:blank:]* [:blank:] space and tab |
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1104 *[:cntrl:]* [:cntrl:] iscntrl ASCII control characters |
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1105 *[:digit:]* [:digit:] decimal digits '0' to '9' |
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1106 *[:graph:]* [:graph:] isgraph ASCII printable characters excluding |
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1107 space |
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1108 *[:lower:]* [:lower:] (1) lowercase letters (all letters when |
| 7 | 1109 'ignorecase' is used) |
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1110 *[:print:]* [:print:] (2) printable characters including space |
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1111 *[:punct:]* [:punct:] ispunct ASCII punctuation characters |
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1112 *[:space:]* [:space:] whitespace characters: space, tab, CR, |
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1113 NL, vertical tab, form feed |
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1114 *[:upper:]* [:upper:] (3) uppercase letters (all letters when |
| 7 | 1115 'ignorecase' is used) |
|
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1116 *[:xdigit:]* [:xdigit:] hexadecimal digits: 0-9, a-f, A-F |
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1117 *[:return:]* [:return:] the <CR> character |
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1118 *[:tab:]* [:tab:] the <Tab> character |
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1119 *[:escape:]* [:escape:] the <Esc> character |
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1120 *[:backspace:]* [:backspace:] the <BS> character |
| 7 | 1121 The brackets in character class expressions are additional to the |
| 1122 brackets delimiting a collection. For example, the following is a | |
| 1123 plausible pattern for a UNIX filename: "[-./[:alnum:]_~]\+" That is, | |
| 1124 a list of at least one character, each of which is either '-', '.', | |
| 1125 '/', alphabetic, numeric, '_' or '~'. | |
|
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1126 These items only work for 8-bit characters, except [:lower:] and |
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1127 [:upper:] also work for multi-byte characters when using the new |
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1128 regexp engine. See |two-engines|. In the future these items may |
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1129 work for multi-byte characters. For now, to get all "alpha" |
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1130 characters you can use: [[:lower:][:upper:]]. |
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1131 |
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1132 The "Func" column shows what library function is used. The |
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1133 implementation depends on the system. Otherwise: |
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1134 (1) Uses islower() for ASCII and Vim builtin rules for other |
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1135 characters when built with the |+multi_byte| feature. |
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1136 (2) Uses Vim builtin rules |
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1137 (3) As with (1) but using isupper() |
| 168 | 1138 */[[=* *[==]* |
| 1139 - An equivalence class. This means that characters are matched that | |
| 2974 | 1140 have almost the same meaning, e.g., when ignoring accents. This |
| 1141 only works for Unicode, latin1 and latin9. The form is: | |
| 856 | 1142 [=a=] |
| 168 | 1143 */[[.* *[..]* |
| 1144 - A collation element. This currently simply accepts a single | |
| 1145 character in the form: | |
| 856 | 1146 [.a.] |
| 7 | 1147 */\]* |
| 1148 - To include a literal ']', '^', '-' or '\' in the collection, put a | |
| 1149 backslash before it: "[xyz\]]", "[\^xyz]", "[xy\-z]" and "[xyz\\]". | |
| 1150 (Note: POSIX does not support the use of a backslash this way). For | |
| 1151 ']' you can also make it the first character (following a possible | |
| 1152 "^"): "[]xyz]" or "[^]xyz]" {not in Vi}. | |
| 1153 For '-' you can also make it the first or last character: "[-xyz]", | |
| 1154 "[^-xyz]" or "[xyz-]". For '\' you can also let it be followed by | |
|
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1155 any character that's not in "^]-\bdertnoUux". "[\xyz]" matches '\', |
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1156 'x', 'y' and 'z'. It's better to use "\\" though, future expansions |
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1157 may use other characters after '\'. |
| 4339 | 1158 - Omitting the trailing ] is not considered an error. "[]" works like |
| 1159 "[]]", it matches the ']' character. | |
| 7 | 1160 - The following translations are accepted when the 'l' flag is not |
| 1161 included in 'cpoptions' {not in Vi}: | |
| 1162 \e <Esc> | |
| 1163 \t <Tab> | |
| 1164 \r <CR> (NOT end-of-line!) | |
| 1165 \b <BS> | |
| 1125 | 1166 \n line break, see above |/[\n]| |
| 24 | 1167 \d123 decimal number of character |
| 1168 \o40 octal number of character up to 0377 | |
| 1169 \x20 hexadecimal number of character up to 0xff | |
| 1170 \u20AC hex. number of multibyte character up to 0xffff | |
| 1171 \U1234 hex. number of multibyte character up to 0xffffffff | |
| 7 | 1172 NOTE: The other backslash codes mentioned above do not work inside |
| 1173 []! | |
| 1174 - Matching with a collection can be slow, because each character in | |
| 1175 the text has to be compared with each character in the collection. | |
| 1176 Use one of the other atoms above when possible. Example: "\d" is | |
|
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1177 much faster than "[0-9]" and matches the same characters. However, |
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1178 the new |NFA| regexp engine deals with this better than the old one. |
| 7 | 1179 |
| 1180 */\%[]* *E69* *E70* *E369* | |
| 24 | 1181 \%[] A sequence of optionally matched atoms. This always matches. |
| 7 | 1182 It matches as much of the list of atoms it contains as possible. Thus |
| 1183 it stops at the first atom that doesn't match. For example: > | |
| 1184 /r\%[ead] | |
| 1185 < matches "r", "re", "rea" or "read". The longest that matches is used. | |
| 1186 To match the Ex command "function", where "fu" is required and | |
| 1187 "nction" is optional, this would work: > | |
| 1188 /\<fu\%[nction]\> | |
| 1189 < The end-of-word atom "\>" is used to avoid matching "fu" in "full". | |
| 1190 It gets more complicated when the atoms are not ordinary characters. | |
| 1191 You don't often have to use it, but it is possible. Example: > | |
| 1192 /\<r\%[[eo]ad]\> | |
| 1193 < Matches the words "r", "re", "ro", "rea", "roa", "read" and "road". | |
| 1125 | 1194 There can be no \(\), \%(\) or \z(\) items inside the [] and \%[] does |
| 1195 not nest. | |
| 1620 | 1196 To include a "[" use "[[]" and for "]" use []]", e.g.,: > |
| 1197 /index\%[[[]0[]]] | |
| 1198 < matches "index" "index[", "index[0" and "index[0]". | |
|
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1199 {not available when compiled without the |+syntax| feature} |
| 7 | 1200 |
| 140 | 1201 */\%d* */\%x* */\%o* */\%u* */\%U* *E678* |
| 24 | 1202 |
| 1203 \%d123 Matches the character specified with a decimal number. Must be | |
| 1204 followed by a non-digit. | |
| 1205 \%o40 Matches the character specified with an octal number up to 0377. | |
| 1206 Numbers below 040 must be followed by a non-octal digit or a non-digit. | |
| 1207 \%x2a Matches the character specified with up to two hexadecimal characters. | |
| 1208 \%u20AC Matches the character specified with up to four hexadecimal | |
| 1209 characters. | |
| 1210 \%U1234abcd Matches the character specified with up to eight hexadecimal | |
| 1211 characters. | |
| 7 | 1212 |
| 1213 ============================================================================== | |
| 1214 7. Ignoring case in a pattern */ignorecase* | |
| 1215 | |
| 1216 If the 'ignorecase' option is on, the case of normal letters is ignored. | |
| 1217 'smartcase' can be set to ignore case when the pattern contains lowercase | |
| 1218 letters only. | |
| 1219 */\c* */\C* | |
| 1220 When "\c" appears anywhere in the pattern, the whole pattern is handled like | |
| 1221 'ignorecase' is on. The actual value of 'ignorecase' and 'smartcase' is | |
| 1222 ignored. "\C" does the opposite: Force matching case for the whole pattern. | |
| 1223 {only Vim supports \c and \C} | |
| 1224 Note that 'ignorecase', "\c" and "\C" are not used for the character classes. | |
| 1225 | |
| 1226 Examples: | |
| 1227 pattern 'ignorecase' 'smartcase' matches ~ | |
| 1228 foo off - foo | |
| 1229 foo on - foo Foo FOO | |
| 1230 Foo on off foo Foo FOO | |
| 1231 Foo on on Foo | |
| 1232 \cfoo - - foo Foo FOO | |
| 1233 foo\C - - foo | |
| 1234 | |
| 1235 Technical detail: *NL-used-for-Nul* | |
| 1236 <Nul> characters in the file are stored as <NL> in memory. In the display | |
| 1237 they are shown as "^@". The translation is done when reading and writing | |
| 1238 files. To match a <Nul> with a search pattern you can just enter CTRL-@ or | |
| 1239 "CTRL-V 000". This is probably just what you expect. Internally the | |
| 1240 character is replaced with a <NL> in the search pattern. What is unusual is | |
| 1241 that typing CTRL-V CTRL-J also inserts a <NL>, thus also searches for a <Nul> | |
| 1242 in the file. {Vi cannot handle <Nul> characters in the file at all} | |
| 1243 | |
| 1244 *CR-used-for-NL* | |
| 1245 When 'fileformat' is "mac", <NL> characters in the file are stored as <CR> | |
| 1698 | 1246 characters internally. In the text they are shown as "^J". Otherwise this |
| 7 | 1247 works similar to the usage of <NL> for a <Nul>. |
| 1248 | |
| 1249 When working with expression evaluation, a <NL> character in the pattern | |
| 1250 matches a <NL> in the string. The use of "\n" (backslash n) to match a <NL> | |
| 1251 doesn't work there, it only works to match text in the buffer. | |
| 1252 | |
| 1253 *pattern-multi-byte* | |
| 1254 Patterns will also work with multi-byte characters, mostly as you would | |
| 1255 expect. But invalid bytes may cause trouble, a pattern with an invalid byte | |
| 1256 will probably never match. | |
| 1257 | |
| 1258 ============================================================================== | |
| 714 | 1259 8. Composing characters *patterns-composing* |
| 1260 | |
| 1261 */\Z* | |
| 5901 | 1262 When "\Z" appears anywhere in the pattern, all composing characters are |
| 1263 ignored. Thus only the base characters need to match, the composing | |
| 1264 characters may be different and the number of composing characters may differ. | |
| 1265 Only relevant when 'encoding' is "utf-8". | |
|
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1266 Exception: If the pattern starts with one or more composing characters, these |
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1267 must match. |
| 5901 | 1268 */\%C* |
| 1269 Use "\%C" to skip any composing characters. For example, the pattern "a" does | |
| 1270 not match in "càt" (where the a has the composing character 0x0300), but | |
| 1271 "a\%C" does. Note that this does not match "cát" (where the á is character | |
| 1272 0xe1, it does not have a compositing character). It does match "cat" (where | |
| 1273 the a is just an a). | |
| 714 | 1274 |
| 1275 When a composing character appears at the start of the pattern of after an | |
| 1276 item that doesn't include the composing character, a match is found at any | |
| 1277 character that includes this composing character. | |
| 1278 | |
| 1279 When using a dot and a composing character, this works the same as the | |
| 1280 composing character by itself, except that it doesn't matter what comes before | |
| 1281 this. | |
| 1282 | |
|
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1283 The order of composing characters does not matter. Also, the text may have |
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1284 more composing characters than the pattern, it still matches. But all |
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1285 composing characters in the pattern must be found in the text. |
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1286 |
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1287 Suppose B is a base character and x and y are composing characters: |
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1288 pattern text match ~ |
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1289 Bxy Bxy yes (perfect match) |
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1290 Bxy Byx yes (order ignored) |
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1291 Bxy By no (x missing) |
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1292 Bxy Bx no (y missing) |
| 4780 | 1293 Bx Bx yes (perfect match) |
|
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1294 Bx By no (x missing) |
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1295 Bx Bxy yes (extra y ignored) |
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1296 Bx Byx yes (extra y ignored) |
| 714 | 1297 |
| 1298 ============================================================================== | |
| 1299 9. Compare with Perl patterns *perl-patterns* | |
| 7 | 1300 |
| 1301 Vim's regexes are most similar to Perl's, in terms of what you can do. The | |
| 1302 difference between them is mostly just notation; here's a summary of where | |
| 1303 they differ: | |
| 1304 | |
| 1305 Capability in Vimspeak in Perlspeak ~ | |
| 1306 ---------------------------------------------------------------- | |
| 1307 force case insensitivity \c (?i) | |
| 1308 force case sensitivity \C (?-i) | |
| 714 | 1309 backref-less grouping \%(atom\) (?:atom) |
| 7 | 1310 conservative quantifiers \{-n,m} *?, +?, ??, {}? |
| 1311 0-width match atom\@= (?=atom) | |
| 1312 0-width non-match atom\@! (?!atom) | |
| 1313 0-width preceding match atom\@<= (?<=atom) | |
| 1314 0-width preceding non-match atom\@<! (?<!atom) | |
| 1315 match without retry atom\@> (?>atom) | |
| 1316 | |
| 1317 Vim and Perl handle newline characters inside a string a bit differently: | |
| 1318 | |
| 1319 In Perl, ^ and $ only match at the very beginning and end of the text, | |
| 1320 by default, but you can set the 'm' flag, which lets them match at | |
| 1321 embedded newlines as well. You can also set the 's' flag, which causes | |
| 1322 a . to match newlines as well. (Both these flags can be changed inside | |
| 1323 a pattern using the same syntax used for the i flag above, BTW.) | |
| 1324 | |
| 1325 On the other hand, Vim's ^ and $ always match at embedded newlines, and | |
| 1326 you get two separate atoms, \%^ and \%$, which only match at the very | |
| 1327 start and end of the text, respectively. Vim solves the second problem | |
| 1328 by giving you the \_ "modifier": put it in front of a . or a character | |
| 1329 class, and they will match newlines as well. | |
| 1330 | |
| 1331 Finally, these constructs are unique to Perl: | |
| 1332 - execution of arbitrary code in the regex: (?{perl code}) | |
| 1333 - conditional expressions: (?(condition)true-expr|false-expr) | |
| 1334 | |
| 1335 ...and these are unique to Vim: | |
| 1336 - changing the magic-ness of a pattern: \v \V \m \M | |
| 1337 (very useful for avoiding backslashitis) | |
| 1338 - sequence of optionally matching atoms: \%[atoms] | |
| 1339 - \& (which is to \| what "and" is to "or"; it forces several branches | |
| 1340 to match at one spot) | |
| 1341 - matching lines/columns by number: \%5l \%5c \%5v | |
| 714 | 1342 - setting the start and end of the match: \zs \ze |
| 7 | 1343 |
| 1344 ============================================================================== | |
| 714 | 1345 10. Highlighting matches *match-highlight* |
| 7 | 1346 |
| 1347 *:mat* *:match* | |
| 1348 :mat[ch] {group} /{pattern}/ | |
| 1349 Define a pattern to highlight in the current window. It will | |
| 1350 be highlighted with {group}. Example: > | |
| 1351 :highlight MyGroup ctermbg=green guibg=green | |
| 1352 :match MyGroup /TODO/ | |
| 1353 < Instead of // any character can be used to mark the start and | |
| 1354 end of the {pattern}. Watch out for using special characters, | |
| 1355 such as '"' and '|'. | |
| 699 | 1356 |
| 7 | 1357 {group} must exist at the moment this command is executed. |
| 699 | 1358 |
| 1359 The {group} highlighting still applies when a character is | |
| 1326 | 1360 to be highlighted for 'hlsearch', as the highlighting for |
| 1361 matches is given higher priority than that of 'hlsearch'. | |
| 1362 Syntax highlighting (see 'syntax') is also overruled by | |
| 1363 matches. | |
| 699 | 1364 |
| 7 | 1365 Note that highlighting the last used search pattern with |
| 1366 'hlsearch' is used in all windows, while the pattern defined | |
| 1367 with ":match" only exists in the current window. It is kept | |
| 1368 when switching to another buffer. | |
| 699 | 1369 |
| 1370 'ignorecase' does not apply, use |/\c| in the pattern to | |
| 1371 ignore case. Otherwise case is not ignored. | |
| 1372 | |
| 1620 | 1373 'redrawtime' defines the maximum time searched for pattern |
| 1374 matches. | |
| 1375 | |
| 1125 | 1376 When matching end-of-line and Vim redraws only part of the |
| 1377 display you may get unexpected results. That is because Vim | |
| 1378 looks for a match in the line where redrawing starts. | |
| 1379 | |
| 1620 | 1380 Also see |matcharg()| and |getmatches()|. The former returns |
| 1326 | 1381 the highlight group and pattern of a previous |:match| |
| 1382 command. The latter returns a list with highlight groups and | |
| 1383 patterns defined by both |matchadd()| and |:match|. | |
| 1384 | |
| 1385 Highlighting matches using |:match| are limited to three | |
| 5968 | 1386 matches (aside from |:match|, |:2match| and |:3match| are |
| 1326 | 1387 available). |matchadd()| does not have this limitation and in |
| 1388 addition makes it possible to prioritize matches. | |
| 819 | 1389 |
| 7 | 1390 Another example, which highlights all characters in virtual |
| 1391 column 72 and more: > | |
| 1392 :highlight rightMargin term=bold ctermfg=blue guifg=blue | |
| 1393 :match rightMargin /.\%>72v/ | |
| 1394 < To highlight all character that are in virtual column 7: > | |
| 1395 :highlight col8 ctermbg=grey guibg=grey | |
| 1396 :match col8 /\%<8v.\%>7v/ | |
| 1397 < Note the use of two items to also match a character that | |
| 1398 occupies more than one virtual column, such as a TAB. | |
| 1399 | |
| 1400 :mat[ch] | |
| 1401 :mat[ch] none | |
| 1402 Clear a previously defined match pattern. | |
| 1403 | |
| 699 | 1404 |
| 819 | 1405 :2mat[ch] {group} /{pattern}/ *:2match* |
| 699 | 1406 :2mat[ch] |
| 1407 :2mat[ch] none | |
| 819 | 1408 :3mat[ch] {group} /{pattern}/ *:3match* |
| 699 | 1409 :3mat[ch] |
| 1410 :3mat[ch] none | |
| 1411 Just like |:match| above, but set a separate match. Thus | |
| 1412 there can be three matches active at the same time. The match | |
| 1413 with the lowest number has priority if several match at the | |
| 1414 same position. | |
| 1415 The ":3match" command is used by the |matchparen| plugin. You | |
| 1416 are suggested to use ":match" for manual matching and | |
| 1417 ":2match" for another plugin. | |
| 1418 | |
| 1419 | |
| 14421 | 1420 vim:tw=78:ts=8:noet:ft=help:norl: |