How do I search for a pattern that spans multiple lines?

Explanation

Vim's \_ modifier makes any character class match newlines too. The pattern \_.* matches any character including newlines, letting you search across line boundaries.

How it works

• . matches any character except newline
• \_.* matches any character including newline (zero or more times)
• \_s matches whitespace including newlines
• \_^ matches the start of any line (not just the first)

Examples

" Find 'function' followed by 'return' anywhere after (across lines)
/function\_.*return

" Find opening brace followed by closing brace (multi-line)
/{\_.*}

" Find empty HTML tags (across lines)
/<div>\_s*<\/div>

" Find 'if' followed by 'else' within a few lines
/if\_.*\%3lelse

Line-boundary atoms

\n     " Match a newline character in the search
\_s    " Whitespace or newline
\_^    " Start of a line (anywhere in match)
\_$    " End of a line (anywhere in match)
\_[a-z] " Character class that also matches newline

Practical example

Find Python functions with no return statement:

/def \w\+(.*)\_.*\(return\)\@!\ndef

Tips

• Multi-line searches can be slow on large files since Vim must scan across lines
• Use \_.\{-} for non-greedy multi-line matching (like .*? in other regex flavors)
• Combine with \v (very magic) for cleaner syntax: /\vfunction\_.+return
• This works in both / search and :s substitution commands