How to run a search and replace command without cursor moving in Vim?
When the :substitute
command is run, prior to any replacements being
carried out, the current position of the cursor is stored in the jump
list (see :help jumplist
).
In order to return to the position before the latest jump, one can use
the ``
or ''
Normal-mode commands. The former
jumps exactly to the stored position; the latter jumps to the first
non-whitespace character on the line the stored position belongs to.
It is possible to both invoke a substitution command and move the cursor back afterwards, at once, by issuing the command
:%s/pat/str/g|norm!``
or, if jumping to the containing line is sufficient, by using the command
:%s/pat/str/g|''
It is not necessary to preface ''
with norm!
in the latter
command, because the ''
address is allowed by the range syntax
of Ex commands and refers to the same line the Normal-mode
command ''
jumps to (see :help :range
); both just look into
the contents of the '
psudo-mark.
I just type Ctrl+O after the replace to get back to the previous location.
It's old, but for anyone coming across this question, I wanted to share my solution since it will work correctly even if nothing is substituted:
:exe 'norm m`' | %s/pattern/substitution/eg | norm g``
exe
is needed since norm
treats the bar as an argument.