![]() ![]() In that case, the characters of your pattern will try to match the characters of your text.įor example, the regex vim will match the three consecutive characters v, i, and m in your text. The simplest regex patterns we can create are composed of characters. ![]() That’s why regular expressions are so powerful: they allow us to define abstract text patterns to do what we want to do, effectively and efficiently. Operating on the lines matching a specific pattern (using the global command :g in Vim, for example).Searching and replacing a specific pattern (using the substitute command :s in Vim, for example).Searching a specific text pattern in a text file.The goal of a regex is to match some text to perform some action(s). That’s it! We’re now ready to craft our regexes like a Plain Text God©. Regexes are not that difficult when you get the hang of it, but there is a lot to cover that’s why this article will be part of a series of article about regexes, and more specifically regexes in Vim. Try something good enough to solve your problem, instead of crafting the most general regex for five hours. One of the most important things to keep in mind when creating your regexes: the perfect regex is rarely necessary. As a result, to follow along, make sure that you have both Vim (or Neovim), GNU Grep, and eventually Perl installed on your computer. I’ve written some small exercises you’ll find throughout this article, for you to test your knowledge, and to remember what we speak about.Įach exercise will have a solution using Vim’s regex engine as well as the PCRE one, using GNU grep (and sometimes the CLI perl when we need to substitute some text). That way, you won’t read a boring article in the worst passive way, but you’ll be the acting Hero of the Regular Expression Journey™. ![]() To understand how regular expressions work, we’ll use, throughout this article, this example file you can download and open in Vim (or copy-paste if you want). If you like my articles about Vim, I’m currently writing an ambitious book about The Best Editor™ with many more tips!
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