Find and replace strings in vim on multiple lines

Replace All:

:%s/foo/bar/g

Find each occurrence of 'foo' (in all lines), and replace it with 'bar'.

For specific lines:

:6,10s/foo/bar/g

Change each 'foo' to 'bar' for all lines from line 6 to line 10 inclusive.

As a side note, instead of having to type in the line numbers, just highlight the lines where you want to find/replace in one of the visual modes:

• VISUAL mode (V)
• VISUAL BLOCK mode (Ctrl+V)
• VISUAL LINE mode (Shift+V, works best in your case)

Once you selected the lines to replace, type your command:

:s/<search_string>/<replace_string>/g

You'll note that the range '<,'> will be inserted automatically for you:

:'<,'>s/<search_string>/<replace_string>/g

Here '< simply means first highlighted line, and '> means last highlighted line.

Note that the behaviour might be unexpected when in NORMAL mode: '< and '> point to the start and end of the last highlight done in one of the VISUAL modes. Instead, in NORMAL mode, the special line number . can be used, which simply means current line. Hence, you can find/replace only on the current line like this:

:.s/<search_string>/<replace_string>/g

Another thing to note is that inserting a second : between the range and the find/replace command does no harm, in other words, these commands will still work:

:'<,'>:s/<search_string>/<replace_string>/g
:.:s/<search_string>/<replace_string>/g

Search and replace

:%s/search\|search2\|search3/replace/gci

g => global search

c => Ask for confirmation first

i => Case insensitive

If you want direct replacement without confirmation, use below command

:%s/search/replace/g

If you want confirmation for each replace then run the below command

:%s/search/replace/gc

Ask for confirmation first, here search will be case insensitive.

:%s/search/replace/gci

The :&& command repeats the last substitution with the same flags. You can supply the additional range(s) to it (and concatenate as many as you like):

:6,10s/<search_string>/<replace_string>/g | 14,18&&

If you have many ranges though, I'd rather use a loop:

:for range in split('6,10 14,18')| exe range 's/<search_string>/<replace_string>/g' | endfor