Vim Search and Replace

Search and replace using vim's [range]s/search/replace/[flags] syntax with a nice preview of replacements.

Quick Start

• Assign a keyboard shortcut to the command vim-search-and-replace.start
• Execute the command with the assigned keyboard shortcut and type in the input box after the prompt %s/
• You should see matches highlighted in the document. If you type the replacement pattern you should also see a preview of the replacement.

Features

Regular expressions

The search string can be any valid javascript regular expressions and replace any valid pattern accepted by String.prototype.replace.

Flags

• Global search: By default the extension find only the first occurrence. Override this behavior using the g flag.

  s/search/replace/g

• Multiline search. The extension search in each line independently unless the m flag is specified.

  s/search/replace/m

• Case-insensitive search: Use the i flag for a case-insensitive search.

  s/search/replace/i

Ranges

• Search the entire document

  %s/search/replace

• Search the current selection (take a look at vim-search-and-replace.exandSelection below)

  '<,'>s/search/replace

• Search a specific line range

  8,10s/search/replace

Preview changes

A preview of the replaced string is shown beside each match. Useful when you have a complex regular expression with capture groups used in the replacement pattern.

Commands

• vim-search-and-replace.start: Start the search and replace. This command accepts an optional string parameter which will be used as the initial search string. This is useful in my neovim configuration because I can start the search with the visual selection.

• vim-search-and-replace.expandSelection: This command does two things. First, it changes the current range to be '<,'>. Second, it expands the current selection to contain more lines. It accepts an optional argument specifying how many lines up and down the selection should be expanded.

    {
        "key": "ctrl+j",
        "command": "vim-search-and-replace.expandSelection",
        "when": "vim-search-and-replace.active"
        "args": {
            "down": 1
        }
    },
    {
        "key": "ctrl+k",
        "command": "vim-search-and-replace.expandSelection",
        "when": "vim-search-and-replace.active",
        "args": {
            "up": 1
        }
    }
  

Caveats

When setting an initial value to an InputBox the whole text gets selected. This is annoying in our case because you want to start typing at the very end. Currently there's no way to change this behavior (see this). The hack is to set the value after the input box is shown which can cause some delay.