How to find and replace text in Vim or Vi

How to find and replace text in Vim or Vi

Find and replace text in Vim or Vi

Vim is a popular text editor among system administrators and developers. Most Linux Distros come pre-installed. You can use various shortcuts to easily edit your code in Vim. In this tutorial, you will learn how to find and replace text in Vim or Vi.

Basic search and replace syntax in Vim

The basic syntax for Vim search and replace is:

:%s/SEARCH_TEXT/REPLACE_TEXT/COMMAND_FLAG

In the syntax above,SEARCH_TEXT: The text to search for.REPLACE_TEXT: Replacement text.COMMAND_FLAG: Various flags used during search and replace.

1. Find and replace current word

You can use the following command to replace all the specific words on the current line.

:s/SEARCH_TEXT/REPLACE_TEXT/g

2. Find and replace words in every line

You can use the following command to replace all occurrences of a particular word on all lines.

:%s/SEARCH_TEXT/REPLACE_TEXT/g

3. Find and replace case-sensitive words

using i Flag that can replace case-sensitive words. You can use the following commands to find and replace case-sensitive words.

:%s/SEARCH_TEXT/REPLACE_TEXT/gi

4. Find and replace words between specific line ranges

You can also use the following commands to find and replace words within a specific line number range.

:RANGE_STARTS_AT,RANGE_STARTS_AT s/SEARCH_TEXT/REPLACE_TEXT/g

4. Find and replace words asking for confirmation

using c Flag asking for confirmation before replacing text.

:%s/SEARCH_TEXT/REPLACE_TEXT/gc

Conclusion

In this tutorial, you learned how to find and replace text in Vim or Vi. If you have any questions about this, please comment below.