You can search in Vim by hitting the / or ? keys in normal mode, which initiate a forward and backward search respectively. These searches operate on the entire buffer — and usually, this is what you want.
But what if you want to limit your search to a particular range of lines? For example, suppose you’ve got a large log file and you want to search for a particular term within a specific line range.
There are a few ways to do this, but it’s usually easiest to take a visual selection of the ‘interesting’ lines, and use the \%V regex atom. This atom limits matches to within the visual area, so instances of the pattern outside of the visual area aren’t picked up. So, if you wanted to search for the word foo within a bunch of lines, you would:
- visually select the lines with visual-line mode (
V) - re-enter normal mode (
<esc>) - initiate a forward search (
/) - use the
\%Vfoosearch pattern
Let’s try it in the editor. Search for the word foo within the interesting line range by following the instructions above.