How to search for selected text in Vim?

I'm aware that I can use / followed by a regex to search something. And I can use ? to search backwards. And I can use n and N to repeat the search forward and backward.

There are also two nice shortcuts: * or # will search for the word under the cursor (forward/backward). That's very useful! (there are also g* and g# variants)

But... Once I've selected text using visual mode (v), how can I ask Vim to search for exactly that text? A quick look at :help did not... huh... help me.

3

8 Answers

The following sequence will do what you want, given an already selected block of text:

• y (yank the selected text, into the " register by default)
• / (enter search mode)
• (\ V) (optional, enter "very no magic" mode*)
• Ctrl+r " (insert text from " register)
• Enter (Engage!)

(*) "very no magic" mode interprets the following text as plain text instead of as a regex. note however that \ and / are still special and will have to be handled in other ways. If the text does not have any characters considered special, you can skip this step.

Source: Vim Tips Wiki

1

You can yank the hightlighted text first. Then

• /

• Ctrlr

• "

Which will paste what you have yanked after the /.

4

I never felt the need for such a feature but, considering you can find a need for any feature on Vim, I think this from the Vim Wiki should help:

vnoremap // y/\V<C-R>=escape(@",'/\')<CR><CR>

I didn't test it but, looking at the code, it seems to be exactly what you're searching for.

2

You can find a method to create this behavior here at the vim wiki.

1

• Visually select your text

• y (yank, or copy the selected text, into the " register by default)

• ? (enter search mode, searching in the backward direction)

• Ctrlr " (paste what's in " register into your search)

• Enter (start searching)

This will work for many situations where / wont, because using ? does a reverse search, which escapes slashes by default. Then you can hit N to continue your search in the forward, direction, and n to search in the backward direction if you want.

Also, this is a variant to these great answers elsewhere on this page answer 1, answer 2.

The other answers here break p paste, since they override the unnamed register ". Here is a solution that doesn't have this problem:

vnoremap ml :<c-u>let temp_variable=@"<CR>gvy:<c-u>let @/='\V<C-R>=escape(@",'/\')<CR>'<CR>:let @"=temp_variable<CR>:<c-u>set hlsearch<CR>

This solution also doesn't jump to the next instance of the pattern, which I find disruptive if it is out of frame in the current window.

In my configurations on two separate machines, if I select text and then hit / it automatically searches for the selected text.

3

This solution empowers your vim search visually selected context even with multiline and escape characters.

Add the following code in you .vimrc, and search your visually selected content by //. You can also globally substitute the selected content by /s. Or Locally substitute the selected context by // first, and then visually select a region and :'<,'>s//{new_text}.

set incsearch
set hlsearch
set ignorecase
function GetVisualSelection() let raw_search = @" let @/=substitute(escape(raw_search, '\/.*$^~[]'), "\n", '\\n', "g")
endfunction
xnoremap // ""y:call GetVisualSelection()<bar>:set hls<cr>
if has('nvim') set inccommand=nosplit xnoremap /s ""y:call GetVisualSelection()<cr><bar>:%s/
else xnoremap /s ""y:call GetVisualSelection()<cr><bar>:%s//
endif

The above configuration is only about searching. For all my vim configuration, please visit .vimrc