How do I write Vim regex patterns without escaping every special character?

Explanation

In Vim's default regex mode, many metacharacters require a backslash: \+ for one-or-more, \(\) for groups, \{\} for quantifiers. Prefix your pattern with \v (very magic mode) and every character that isn't a letter, digit, or underscore automatically becomes a metacharacter — matching PCRE/ERE conventions that most developers already know.

Magic modes

Vim has four magic levels controlled by prefix atoms:

Example

Match a function call like foo(bar, 42) using default magic:

/foo(\w\+,\s*\d\+)

With \v very magic:

/\vfoo(\w+,\s*\d+)

Capture groups and back-references also become cleaner:

" default
:\(\w\+\) = \(\w\+\)/\2 = \1
" very magic
:%s/\v(\w+) = (\w+)/\2 = \1/g

Tips

• Put \v at the start of your search or substitute pattern: /\vpattern or :%s/\vpattern/replacement/g
• To match a literal special character in \v mode, escape it: \v\(literal parens\)
• Use \V (very nomagic) when you want to search for a string that contains lots of regex metacharacters and you want all of them treated literally
• :help magic has the complete table of all magic levels and their effects