How do I target a substitution at the cursor position using \%#?

Explanation

Most substitutions operate on broad ranges, but sometimes you want a precise edit anchored to where your cursor is right now. Vim's \%# atom matches the current cursor position inside a pattern, so you can build a targeted :s command that edits only the token at that location. This is useful in scripts, mappings, and repeatable refactors where motion-based text objects are awkward.

How it works

• :s/.../.../ runs substitute on the current line
• \%# is a zero-width atom that matches exactly at the cursor position
• \k\+ matches one or more keyword characters (the rest of the word)
• Combined as \%#\k\+, Vim replaces the keyword starting at your cursor

Example

Given the line with cursor at the start of alpha:

alpha beta gamma

Run:

:s/\%#\k\+/REPL/

Result:

REPL beta gamma

Tips

• Use different character classes if your tokens include punctuation
• Pair with :keeppatterns when you do not want to overwrite / history
• This pattern is great inside custom commands that depend on current cursor context