Perform a non-regex search/replace in vim

Question

When doing search/replace in vim, I almost never need to use regex, so it\'s a pain to constantly be escaping everything, Is there a way to make it default to not using regex or

Answer 1

Use this option:

set nomagic

See :help /magic

Answer 2

If you want to search literally, you can use the \V regex atom. This almost does what you want, except that you also need to escape the backslash. You could define your own search command, that would search literally. Something like this:

 :com! -nargs=1 Search :let @/='\V'.escape(<q-args>, '\/')| normal! n

And then use :Search /foobar/baz

For Substitute, you could then after a :Search command simply use

:%s//replace/g

since then Vim would implicitly pick up the last search item and use the for replacing.

(Just want to give you some ideas)

Answer 3

For the :s command there is a shortcut to disable or force magic. To turn off magic use :sno like:

:sno/search_string/replace_string/g

Found here: http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Simplifying_regular_expressions_using_magic_and_no-magic

Answer 4

Try the Edit Find and replace on the menu bar.

Answer 5

Have you enabled magic?

:set magic

Answer 6

Here’s how to disable regular expression search/replace only in command mode:

autocmd CmdWinEnter * set nomagic
autocmd CmdWinLeave * set magic

All plugins that depends on regular expression such as white-space remover should works as usual.