How can I search a word after selecting it in visual mode in Vim?

Question

Suppose I have selected a word in visual mode. Now I want to search that word in the document.

How can I do that?

Thanks in advance.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/363111/search-for-selection-in-vim — Uku Loskit, Jul 29 '11 at 09:13

score 7 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 29 '11 at 09:15

7

If it's just a single word, you don't even have to select it. Just place the cursor on the word and press * (or # to search backwards). Note that this search will only match the whole word. To allow a search for foo to match foobar, use g* or g#.

answered Jul 29 '11 at 09:15

hammar

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score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 26 '19 at 17:15

3

Press y (you'll exit from visual mode after that) then press / Ctrl+r then " end hit enter.

You can use it to bind // for this action:

:vmap // y/<C-R>"<CR>

If you select special chars you better use this

:vmap <silent> // y/<C-R>=escape(@", '\\/.*$^~[]')<CR><CR>

edited Feb 26 '19 at 17:15

Matthias Braun

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answered Jul 29 '11 at 09:16

hadvig

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This is a quick and dirty fix, but you'll only be able to depend on it for the simplest cases, because Vim's search field treats many characters as special (For example: the `.` character stands for anything, and `<`, `(` and `[` brackets all have special meanings). Handling the special cases requires a little bit of Vimscript, so you're better off installing a plugin as [lucapette](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6870902/vim-editor-how-can-i-search-a-word-after-selecting-it-in-visual-mode-in-vim/6871062#6871062) suggested. – nelstrom Jul 29 '11 at 12:49
:vmap // y/=escape(@", '\\/.*$^~[]') – hadvig Jul 29 '11 at 13:20

lucapette · Answer 3 · 2011-07-29T09:26:51.500

2

I recommend https://github.com/thinca/vim-visualstar because you can use * for searching but with some selections you can run into problems.

edited Jul 29 '11 at 09:26

answered Jul 29 '11 at 09:21

lucapette

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I use [visual-star-search](https://github.com/bronson/vim-visual-star-search), which is similar, but seems to achieve the same result with a much simpler implementation. – nelstrom Jul 29 '11 at 12:53
Oh @nelstrom nice to see you here! Thank you for pointing me that I'll give it a try. – lucapette Jul 29 '11 at 12:59

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 29 '11 at 09:24

I have this in my ~/.vimrc:

" Search for visually-selected text, forwards or backwards.
vnoremap <silent> * :<C-U>
  \let old_reg=getreg('"')<Bar>let old_regtype=getregtype('"')<CR>
  \gvy/<C-R><C-R>=substitute(
  \escape(@", '/\.*$^~['), '\_s\+', '\\_s\\+', 'g')<CR><CR>
  \gV:call setreg('"', old_reg, old_regtype)<CR>
vnoremap <silent> # :<C-U>
  \let old_reg=getreg('"')<Bar>let old_regtype=getregtype('"')<CR>
  \gvy?<C-R><C-R>=substitute(
  \escape(@", '?\.*$^~['), '\_s\+', '\\_s\\+', 'g')<CR><CR>
  \gV:call setreg('"', old_reg, old_regtype)<CR>

How can I search a word after selecting it in visual mode in Vim?

4 Answers4

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