Search and Substitute in VIM Editor

This post will show you, how you can easily search and substitute in VIM Editor. Below are some mostly used operations:

Search

• /{string}: search for string
• *: search for other instances of the word under your cursor
• n: go to the next instance when you’ve searched for a string
• N: go to the previous instance when you’ve searched for a string
• ;: go to the next instance when you’ve jumped to a character
• ,: go to the previous instance when you’ve jumped to a character

Substitute

• s: substitute from where you are to the next command (noun)
• S: substitute the entire current line
• :%s /foo/bar/g --- Change “foo” to “bar” on every line
• :%s /foo/bar/gc --- Interactive change “foo” to “bar” on every line
• :s /foo/bar/g --- Change “foo” to “bar” on just the current line
• :s /foo/bar/gc --- Interactive change “foo” to “bar” on just the current line