Find and Replace in Vim and Vi | Hostvento Knowledge Base

The :s command

The substitute command :s replaces text. Press Esc first, then type a colon.

:s/pattern/replacement/

This replaces the first match on the current line.

Command	What it does
`:s/old/new/`	Replace the first "old" on this line
`:s/old/new/g`	Replace every "old" on this line
`:%s/old/new/g`	Replace every "old" in the whole file
`:%s/old/new/gc`	Same, but ask before each change
`:5,10s/old/new/g`	Replace only in lines 5 to 10

Example, replace all matches in the current line:

:s/old/new/g

Replace in the whole file:

:%s/old/new/g

Replace only the first match of each line in the file:

:%s/old/new/

:g runs a command on every line that matches a pattern. To delete all lines that contain "old":

:g/old/d

The general form is:

:g/pattern/command

Whole words only. Use \< and \> as word boundaries, so "older" is not changed:

:%s/\<old\>/new/g

Character classes

:s/old[0-9a-zA-Z]/new/

This replaces "old" followed by one letter or digit.

Groups and backreferences. In Vim, use \( and \) for groups, and \1 for the match. This turns old123 into new123:

:s/old\([0-9]\+\)/new\1/

Add \v ("very magic") to write patterns without so many backslashes:

:s/\vold(\d+)/new\1/

Rename a function in code

:%s/old_function/new_function/g

Change a phrase in a text

:%s/old phrase/new phrase/g

Change a path (use another separator instead of /):

:%s#/old/path#/new/path#g