How do I use regular expressions without escaping special characters?

Explanation

The \v flag enables "very magic" mode in Vim regex, where most special characters work like standard regular expressions without needing backslashes.

How it works

• /\v makes +, ?, |, (, ), {, } all special by default
• Without \v, you must escape these: \+, \?, \|, \(, etc.
• This makes patterns read more like standard regex

Example

Searching for one or more digits:

• Standard Vim: /[0-9]\+
• Very magic: /\v[0-9]+

Searching for "cat" or "dog":

• Standard Vim: /cat\|dog
• Very magic: /\v cat|dog

Tips

• \V is "very nomagic" — only \ is special (literal search)
• \m is the default "magic" mode
• \M is "nomagic" mode
• Very magic mode is closest to Perl/PCRE regex syntax