LinuxQuestions.org - [SOLVED] VIM question: searching in functions and visual areas

Quote:

2- I have some visually selected text and want to search within the selected area.

Somehow I missed \%V from pattern.txt help. Answering myself, do:

- visually select the area
- press ESC
- now, make any normal search but including \%V on its pattern and results will be within that visual area

Example: /printf\%V

Quote:

1- I have some visually selected text (on one or more lines) and want to search for it in the rest of the file. Like * and # do for words.

Check this tip 171 for Vim in Wikia.

It is a plugin (quote: "complexity: basic", LOL) to make searching visually selected things with *, #, n and N.

Save the code below in a file ~/.vim/plugin/vsearch.vim or $HOME/vimfiles/plugin/vsearch.vim (Win). Check its features!

Code:

" Features 

" - Press * to search forwards for selected text, or # to search backwards. 

" - As normal, press n for next search, or N for previous. 

" - Handles multiline selection and search. 

" - Whitespace in the selection matches any whitespace when searching (searching for "hello world" will also find "hello" at the end of a line, with "world" at the start of the next line). 

" - Each search is placed in the search history allowing you to easily repeat previous searches. 

" - No registers are changed.

" - A global variable (g:VeryLiteral) controls whether selected whitespace matches any whitespace (by default, VeryLiteral is off, so any whitespace is found). 

" - Type \vl to toggle VeryLiteral to turn whitespace matching off/on (assuming the default backslash leader key). 

" - When VeryLiteral is off, any selected leading or trailing whitespace will not match newlines, which is more convenient, and avoids false search hits.





" Search for selected text.

" http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/VimTip171

let s:save_cpo = &cpo | set cpo&vim

if !exists('g:VeryLiteral')

  let g:VeryLiteral = 0

endif



function! s:VSetSearch(cmd)

  let old_reg = getreg('"')

  let old_regtype = getregtype('"')

  normal! gvy

  if @@ =~? '^[0-9a-z,_]*$' || @@ =~? '^[0-9a-z ,_]*$' && g:VeryLiteral

    let @/ = @@

  else

    let pat = escape(@@, a:cmd.'\')

    if g:VeryLiteral

      let pat = substitute(pat, '\n', '\\n', 'g')

    else

      let pat = substitute(pat, '^\_s\+', '\\s\\+', '')

      let pat = substitute(pat, '\_s\+$', '\\s\\*', '')

      let pat = substitute(pat, '\_s\+', '\\_s\\+', 'g')

    endif

    let @/ = '\V'.pat

  endif

  normal! gV

  call setreg('"', old_reg, old_regtype)

endfunction



vnoremap <silent> * :<C-U>call <SID>VSetSearch('/')<CR>/<C-R>/<CR>

vnoremap <silent> # :<C-U>call <SID>VSetSearch('?')<CR>?<C-R>/<CR>

vmap <kMultiply> *



nmap <silent> <Plug>VLToggle :let g:VeryLiteral = !g:VeryLiteral

  \\| echo "VeryLiteral " . (g:VeryLiteral ? "On" : "Off")<CR>

if !hasmapto("<Plug>VLToggle")

  nmap <unique> <Leader>vl <Plug>VLToggle

endif

let &cpo = s:save_cpo | unlet s:save_cpo