/ in vi Search and replace?

Question

in vi, search and replace, how do you escape a \'/\' (forward slash) so that it is correct. Say in a path.

like: /Users/tom/documents/pdfs/

:%s//Users/to         


        

Answer 1

You need to escape the forward slashes internally, too.

:%s/\/Users\/tom\/documents\/pdfs\//<new text>/g

Answer 2

Alternatively you can do :%s,foo/bar/baz,foo/bar/boz,g - I almost never use slashes because of the escaping confusion.

Answer 3

You can use ? to search

In case of searching pattern in a register, and the pattern contains a '/' character, you can simply use ? command instead of / command from normal mode to start pattern matching. In such case, no more escape required for '/' char. (however you need to escape '?' char now)

? will search in the opposite direction of /, so if you don't mind the search direction, and your search pattern doesn't contains '?' char.

In addition, check the escape() script if you want more.

Answer 4

As Sarah suggested, you need to escape ALL forward slashes.

You could instead use another character besides forward-slash as the delimiter. This is handy if your search string has a lot of slashes in it.

:%s#/Users/tom/documents/pdfs/#<new test>#g

This works perfectly in vim. I'm not 100% sure about vanilla vi.

Answer 5

I know this question is several years old, but for others who may land upon this one searching for an easier solution, in 2014, you can substitute the "/" delimiter for something else like "!", as long as you do it in front, middle, and back, like this:

:%s!foo/bar/baz!foo/bar/boz!g

Very simiar to Meder's answer ... But, I find that the exclamation is a lot easier to view as a separator. And I just wanted to confirm that this method still works in the current version of VIM, which I am using in Mac OSX Mavericks.

Answer 6

Windows uses backslash for directories and Linux uses forward slash for directories. Vim is a text editor that works for operating-systems. Since both os have different directory path interpretation regarding how slashes are used, Vim must then need a way to interpret Windows twisted method.

LINUXFORWARD vs. WINDOWSBACK (DIRECTORY SLASHES)

• The slashes are literally reversed in Windows and easily stated for Linux
  • Windows:
  • C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft OneDrive\
  • Linux:
  • /usr/bin

SOLUTION

I'm only able to state the struggle for Vim's Find & Replace on Windows as i'm not on a Linux pc.

• Fix is to double backslash
  • GOOD:
  • :%s/c:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft OneDrive\\/annoyancereplaced/g
  • BAD:
  • :%s/c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft OneDrive\/unabletoreplaceannoyance/g

NOTE

• If working with network paths where Windows uses two slashes \\ then that means for every backslash there needs to be another backslash as it's always kept even
  • e.g. network path: \\Foo\Bar\
  • %s/C:\\Program Files (x86)\\foo\\bar/\\\\Foo\\Bar\\
  • notice the \\\\