Search Vim Tricks
Searching...:snomagic /foo.\+/bar/<CR>
When a pattern is mostly literal text with just a little regex, default magic mode can force extra escaping and make substitutions harder to read.
:keepjumps keeppatterns %s/\s\+$//e<CR>
Bulk whitespace cleanup is common, but a plain substitution can leave side effects: your last search pattern changes and jump navigation gets noisy.
:put =strtrans(@q)<CR>
Macro failures are often caused by hidden control keys like , , or tabs that are hard to see in raw register output.
:'<,'>g/let /normal! A;<CR>
When you need a structural edit in part of a file, Visual mode ranges combine well with :global and :normal!.
visual-mode #visual-mode #command-line #ex-commands #editing
d/END/e<CR>
When you need to remove text up to a known marker, a plain search motion is often almost right but stops at the start of the match.
:set diffopt+=internal,algorithm:histogram,indent-heuristic
Default diff settings are fine for small edits, but they can produce noisy hunks when code is moved or indentation shifts.
gvV
gv is well known for reselecting the previous visual area, but pairing it with V is a practical upgrade when your next action needs linewise semantics.
/TODO/e
Most users know /pattern, but fewer use search offsets to control where the cursor lands after the match.
:wincmd r
When a split layout is correct but the window positions are awkward, you do not need to close and reopen anything.
:let @q .= 'j.'
When a recorded macro is almost right but missing one repeated step, re-recording from scratch is usually slower and riskier than patching the register directly
:argdo %s/foo/bar/ge | update
Bulk replacements across many files are risky when every buffer gets written unconditionally.
:set diffopt+=vertical,algorithm:patience,indent-heuristic
Default diff behavior can look noisy on refactors where blocks move or indentation shifts.
yiww"_ciw\<C-r>0\<Esc>
When you are doing repetitive refactors, cw is fast but it overwrites the unnamed register with the replaced text.
:%s/\v<(\w+)\s+\1>/\1/g\<CR>
OCR cleanup, copy-paste artifacts, and rushed note-taking often produce repeated words like the the or is is.
:g/[^[:space:]]/normal! A;\<CR>
When you need to patch many lines at once, :g with :normal! is often faster and safer than recording a macro.
command-line #command-line #ex-commands #editing #normal-mode
:set virtualedit=block,onemore
virtualedit controls whether the cursor can move to positions that do not yet contain text.
:call setloclist(0, [], 'r', {'title': 'TODO current file', 'lines': systemlist('rg --vimgrep TODO ' . shellescape(expand('%:p'))), 'efm': '%f:%l:%c:%m'})
For focused review work, a window-local location list is often better than global quickfix.
buffers-windows #buffers #windows #location-list #search #quickfix
/\V<C-r>=histget('/', -2)<CR>
If you often alternate between two complex search patterns, opening q/ each time is slow.
:lfdo normal! @q | update
When you already have a curated location list, :lfdo lets you apply a change only to those files instead of touching your whole project.
macros #macros #location-list #refactoring #command-line #normal-mode
:argdo if search('\s\+$', 'nw') | echo expand('%') | endif
Before running destructive cleanup across many files, it helps to know which files will actually change.
command-line #command-line #search #whitespace #arglist #refactoring
