:%s/[“”]/"/ge<CR>:%s/[‘’]/'/ge<CR>
When text comes from docs, email, or CMS exports, it often contains typographic quotes (“”‘’) that break code snippets, Markdown tooling, or shell comma
:%s/\n\{3,}/\r\r/g
When files pass through formatters, generators, or repeated edits, they often accumulate noisy vertical gaps.
:%s/\v(\d+)/\=printf('%04d', submatch(1))/g<CR>
When you need to normalize IDs, ticket numbers, or sequence values, :substitute can do more than plain text replacement.
command-line #command-line #substitute #regex #formatting #ex-commands
:%s/\v\d+/\=printf('%04d', submatch(0))/g
When you need aligned numeric data for logs, IDs, or generated fixtures, manual edits are slow and error-prone.
:lockmarks keepjumps keeppatterns %s/\s\+$//e
Bulk cleanup commands are easy to automate, but many implementations quietly damage editor state by moving marks, polluting the jumplist, or replacing your last
:set inccommand=nosplit
When you are crafting a risky :substitute command, the expensive part is usually confidence, not typing.
:%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.
:cdo keeppatterns s/\<foo\>/bar/gec | update
When quickfix already contains precise targets, :cdo gives you a safer multi-file replace loop than broad project substitutions.
command-line #command-line #quickfix #substitute #refactoring
:%s/#\zs\d\+/\=printf('%04d', submatch(0))/g
For log files, changelogs, or issue references, you sometimes need fixed-width numeric IDs without touching surrounding syntax.
editing #editing #ex-commands #substitute #regex #text-processing
:s/\v(\S+)\s*=\s*(.*)/\=printf('%-20s = %s', submatch(1), submatch(2))/
When a line contains uneven key = value spacing, quick manual fixes are easy to get wrong.
:s/\%Vfoo/bar/
The \%V atom in Vim's regex engine matches only within the area of the last visual selection.
search #search #visual-mode #substitute #advanced #ex-commands
:%s/^\(.\+\)\n\1$/\1/
This substitute command detects pairs of identical adjacent lines and collapses them into one, using a back-reference to match the repeated content.
:s/\v(\w+)\s+(\w+)/\2 \1/
By using capture groups in a substitute command with very magic mode (\v), you can swap two adjacent words in a single operation.
s/pattern/\r/
In Vim substitutions, \r in the replacement string inserts a line break, creating a new line.
:%s/\v(\w+)/\u\1/g
Vim's substitute command supports case-modifier escapes in the replacement string: \u uppercases the next character, \U uppercases all text until \E or end of r
:s/pattern/\U&/g
Vim's :substitute command supports case-transformation escape sequences in the replacement string.
search #search #substitute #ex-commands #editing #text-objects
:s/pattern/replacement/e
The e flag in Vim's :substitute command silently ignores the "E486: Pattern not found" error when the pattern does not match anything.
:set gdefault
By default, :s/old/new/ only replaces the first occurrence of a pattern on each line.
:s/\(\w\+\)/\u\1/g
Vim's substitute command supports case-change modifiers in the replacement string that let you capitalize, uppercase, or lowercase matched text as part of the s
:%s/pattern//n
The n flag in the substitute command suppresses the actual replacement and instead reports the match count.
