Vim: When sourcing vimrc, last search hl re-appears

Question

The title pretty much says it all. When I :source $MYVIMRC or :source ~/.vimrc, the last search re-appears. I can easily turn this off again with :noh, but it re-appears every time I :source.

This persists

With a fresh .vimrc
After deleting current MacVim install and downloading a fresh copy
In iTerm using vim

I have checked in every file listed with :version, and other than my .vimrc, the only other file listed that isn't empty is $VIM/vimrc - which has only:

set nocompatible  
set backspace+=indent,eol,start  
set langmenu=none

I also tried the nuclear method: disable all plugins and pretend it's a fresh install:

mv .vim .vim-old  
mv .vimrc .vimrc-old  
touch .vimrc  
echo "set hlsearch" > .vimrc

The issue still occurs.

I'm pretty stumped as I don't recall this being the normal behavior; any help would be much appreciated.

:set hls turns on search highlighting... am I misunderstanding your question? — Andy Ray, Feb 25 '13 at 03:12
@AndyRay Nope - but you did, in one short sentence, help me understand that I'm improperly clearing the last search by using `noh` - that doesn't clear the search, it simply turns off `hlsearch`; when I source my vimrc, it's re-enabling highlighting. Thanks! — Josh Whittington, Feb 25 '13 at 03:26

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:00

3

Credit to @AndyRay - I was misusing noh to get rid of the last search's highlighting, when instead I should be overriding the search term with :let @/ = "".

See: Vim clear last search highlighting

edited May 23 '17 at 12:00

Community

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answered Feb 25 '13 at 03:29

Josh Whittington

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 02 '17 at 05:40

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Going off what Josh was getting at. Add the following to your ~./vimrc:

" higlight search but not when sourcing .vimrc
set hls
let @/ = ""

answered Mar 02 '17 at 05:40

mbigras

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Vim: When sourcing vimrc, last search hl re-appears

2 Answers2