Find and replace within the selection in `vi`

Question

How can I find and replace within a selection in vi ?

Answer 1

Select the text in visual mode (I assume what you are doing), then press : to start typing a command, you will see something like this on the command line:

 :'<,'> 

This means that the team will apply to the selection. Then type s/search/replace/ and press enter. (Add g after the third slash if you want to replace all matches, and c if you want confirmation for each replacement)

Answer 2

Most of the other solutions offered here work on the ENTIRE line, which selects what might not be what you want.

To search and replace ONLY in the selection, first visually select the text, and then use the command:

 :%s/\%VSEARCH/REPLACE/g 

This will only search and replace in the visually selected section, replacing SEARCH with REPLACE. If you have selected more than one line, this will work on several lines as well.

Answer 3

If you used Visual mode for selection, then:

 :'<,'>s/regex/replacement/options 

VIM will automatically place the range ( '<,'> ) if you go to command line mode (by pressing ':' ) from visual mode.

Answer 4

Additional help here. Search and replace in visual selection.

Answer 5

If you want to perform a global search and replace (with optional regular expressions) for all instances in the file, I would do the following:

 :%s/foo/bar/g 

Lower g to perform a local swap.