:global
:s (:substitute) is one of the first commands any Vim user learns. There are several similar commands that are more generic. Like :s, these commands can take a range; however, unlike :s, there is no % variant, as these commands are global by nature.These commands can be seen as a simpler, less general-purpose alternative to macros that takes less keypresses.
Instead of substituting strings matching the first part with the second, runs the (command mode) command on strings matching the first part.
Same as
:g, but targets strings that do NOT match.g/pattern/d
Practical usage:
g/TODO:/d
g/debugger/d
g/binding.pry/d
Optimization:
g/pattern/_d puts deleted lines in the null register, which has no performance cost.g/pattern/s/word/newword
This "scopes" the substitution to matching lines (for example, to scope your substitution to comments).
g/pattern/y A
Note that we are yanking to an uppercase register, meaning we append matches. If we did
y a, each yank would overwrite the previous yank.g/pattern/norm ^ihello
This applies the normal mode instruction (here, "go to start and insert hello") to matching lines.
Practical usage:
g/debugger/norm gcc
g/pattern/norm @q
g/pattern/exec "norm!" "A\r"
When using
:norm, you might notice that you can't insert linebreaks -- and <CR> is literally printed as the strings "\r" and "". :exec(ute) lets us actually pass in commands as strings to be executed, like eval().This is a somewhat meta pattern that follows the last example. It executes the two separate commands
"norm!" and "A\r" to the pattern. Before execution, the second is evaluated to "append carriage return."Last modified 2yr ago